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THE SOUTHERN STATES 

OF THE 

AMERICAN UNION 

CONSIDERED IN THEIR RELATIONS 
TO THE 

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 
AND TO THE RESULTING UNION 



BY 



J. L. M. CURRY 

AUTHOR OF "constitutional GOVERNMENT IN SPAIN 
" WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE," " ESTABLISH- 
MENT AND DISESTABLISHMENT IN THE 
UNITED STATES," ETC. 



UHV^ 



Q' 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



NEW YORK LONDON 

27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND 

^\z Knickerbocker |prcss 
1S94 



-1^ 






Copyright, 1894 

BY 

J. L. M. CURRY 



Electrotyped, Printed and Bound by 

"Cbe IRnicfterbocfeer Press, IRew JBorfe 
G. P. Putnam's Sons 



(0 



Uo'^ 



TO 

THE SURVIVING SOLDIERS AND SAILORS, 

WHO FOUGHT IN 

THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES, 

WHO RESPECT THE 

PATRIOTISM AND COURAGE OF THEIR FOES, 

AND WHO WOULD RALLY, 

WITH EQUAL READINESS, UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES, 

IN DEFENCE OF 

THE CONSTITUTION AND THE UNION ; 

TO ALL AMERICANS 

WHO LOA-E JUSTICE AND TRUTH, 

THIS VOLUME 

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Introduction — Conclusions tested by authentic historical 
facts — Early use of the terms the " North" and the 
" South " — Purpose of the book to give the South its 
true place in the origin and history of our Government 1-5 

CHAPTER II. 

Origin of the Colonies and character of their Govern- 
ments ........ 6-9 

CHAPTER III. 

Relation of the Colonies to one another — Each separate, 
making its own laws, W'ith common dependence 
upon the English Crown and amenability to English 
law — Colonies drawn into fraternity, and yet neces- 
sarily isolated ...... 10-13 

CHAPTER IV. 

Fruitless efforts for a closer union, with a view to protec- 
tion against the Indians and the French — Claim of 
sovereignty by Great Britain — Hostile legislation of 
Parliament — The stamp tax — Patriotic conduct of 
Boston — Remonstrances of the Colonies — Decisive 
action of Virginia — Followed by other Colonies — 
Activity of South Carolina and Georgia — The Con- 
gress of 1765 — Repeal of the Stamp Act — Assertion 
and exercise of equivalent authority — Colonies in- 
dignant and firm — Committees of Correspondence 14-25 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

PAGE 

The tax on tea — Action of Boston, Charleston, Phila- 
delphia, and Annapolis — Port of Boston closed — 
Refusal to allow tea to be sold — Preparation fnr 
resistance — Virginia invites a Congress — Resolute 
acceptance of the Colonies — Functions of the Con- 
gress — Declaration of Independence, validity and 
significance of — Fallacy that all men are created 
equal — Colonies reorganized the civil corporations 
into distinct commonwealths — Patriotic sacrifices 
of the Southern States — Favored by the mother 
country — Partisan war — Statistics of soldiers fur- 
nished — Western campaigns and settlements 26-57 

CHAPTER VI. 

Fuller statement of the character and functions of the 
Continental Congress — Exerted no sovereign power, 
was not strictly a legislative body, made no claim 
of intercolonial control ..... 58-66 

CHAPTER VII. 

Articles of Confederation — A more powerful union needed 
— Surrender of the Northwest Territory by Virginia 
— The Convention of 1787 — Ratification of the Con- 
stitution by conventions in the several States — Navi- 
gation of the Mississippi— What the South did to 
establish the Government — Magnanimity in sur- 
rendering the taxing power — Washington, the illus- 
trious Southerner . . . . . . 67-91 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Evolution of the two great political parties — Radical 
differences between them — Real nature of the Federal 
Union — Meaning of " We, the people " — Hamilton's 
effort to assimilate the new Government to the 
British system — Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions 
of 1798-99 92-109 



CONTENTS. vii 

CHAPTER IX. 

WarofiS 1 2— Opposition of New England— The Indian'"^''^ 
and Mexican wars— Conduct of the South 110-118 

CHAPTER X. 

Acquisition of territory— Origin of secession ideas— New 

England sectionalism— Non-intervention . . 119-133 

CHAPTER XI. 

Measures illustrative of the differences between the North 
and the South — Aggrandisement of Federal power- 
Perversion of the original theory and end of the 
Constitution — Protective tariffs, internal improve- 
ments, national expenditures, subsidized States 134-147 

CHAPTER XII. 

Conservatism of the South— Adherence to the Constitu- 
tion as a safeguard — Claim of equality — Power of 
Congress over the Territories— The Missouri com- 
promise — The Wilmot proviso — Squatter sovereignty 
— Fugitive-slave law — Opinions of Story, Webster, 
and others — Statement of the views of the North and 
the South on the slavery question — The Supreme 
Court as the arbiter in political questions — Inde- 
structible States in an indissoluble Union 148-182 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Necessary inferences from anti-slavery domination — Steps 
leading to the organization of the Confederate States 
— Their constitution, the authoritative exposition of 
principles and purposes of the seceding States — 
Defensive not aggressive — Neither new nor revolu- 
tionary — Changes of opinions and laws in respect to 
African slavery ...... 183-213 

CHAPTER XTV. 
War between the States 214-218 



Vlll CONTENTS, 

CHAPTER XV. 

PAGE 

Constitutional amendments — States in and out of the 
Union — Saturnalia of fraud and tyranny — Horrors 
of reconstruction — Defeat of that policy a blessing to 
the negroes ...... 219-233 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Present status of the South — Demonstrated loyalty of 
her people — Mutual dependence of the sections — 
Duty of all good citizens ..... 234-248 



THE SOUTHERN STATES 



OF THE 



AMERICAN UNION. 



THE SOUTHERN STATES IN THEIR 

RELATION TO THE CONSTITUTION 

AND THE RESULTING UNION. 



CHAPTER I. 

This book is not controversial ; nor do I pre- 
tend to original research or to the discovery of 
unknown facts. Its aim is to reconstruct ideas 
and opinions adverse to the South, insofar as 
they are founded on ignorance and prejudice. 

Freeman said, " When certain prejudices 
have become parts of our mental furniture, 
when our primary data and our methods of 
reasoning imply a set of local, narrow assump- 
tions, the task of getting outside them is almost 
the task of getting outside of our own skins." 
Books on Political Science, and Constitutional 
Law, on the Government, written to sustain a 
theory, a foregone conclusion, a section, a party 
or pecuniary interest, often ignore or miscon- 
strue the plainest historical facts. It has been 
found necessary to bring into light authentic 
records of official acts, forgotten or obscured or 
hid away, and to put upon them the original, the 



2 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

natural, and the rational interpretation. Charac- 
teristics of institutions, and of constitutional law, 
may be ascertained from a study of the origin 
and history of the forces in operation anterior 
to the Constitution, which forces really were the 
source of its existence. It has therefore seemed 
necessary to go behind 1789, in order to under- 
stand what led to the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion, and what kind of government the States 
established. That conquerors should make 
laws for the conquered seems a political, as it 
is the ordinary, consequence of the conquest. 
It is not so obvious, nor so logical, that they 
should make history. It is fortunate that 
authentic records survive to guide the im- 
partial historian, or the inquirer into political 
philosophy. 

From an early period, the Colonies of the 
southern portion of the British possessions 
were, in the broad phrase, specialized as South- 
ern. In course of time, the South became a 
geographical term to designate the slave-hold- 
ing section, and a political term to designate 
a theory of government,- or a peculiar interpre- 
tation of the Constitution. '' South and North," 
as descriptive classifications, became fixed in 
our political vocabulary, and parties were dis- 
tinguished by local discriminations or epithets. 
In the Constitutional Convention, Madison said 
the antagonism between North and South would 
prove the most deep-seated and enduring of all. 
*' It seems now to be pretty well understood 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 3 

that the real difference of interests , lay, not 
between the large and small, but between the 
Northern and Southern States.'" "The in- 
stitution of slavery and its consequences formed 
the line of discrimination." Bancroft says: 
" An ineradicable dread of the coming power 
of the Southwest lurked in New England, 
especially in Massachusetts." ^ 

In 1796, the Hartford Courarit, an organ of the 
Federalists, spoke of the " general opposition of 
sentiment which distinguishes the two great dis- 
tricts of territory." An " opposition of interest " 
was " strongly exemplified within the walls of 
the Constitutional Congress during the Revolu- 
tionary War." In the North Carolina Conven- 
tion, 1788, CoL Bloodworth said, "When I was 
in Congress the Northern and Southern interests 
divided at the Susquehanna." The Ordinance 
of 1787 drew out many hostile, or suspicious 
expressions. Distinct political economies in 
the trading and planting colonies, distinct 
social and labor systems, differences in habits, 
thoughts, and interests, awakened, very early, 
apprehensions and jealousies, and tended to 
give permanency to geographical issues. 

History, poetry, romance, art, pubHc opinion, 
have been most unjust to the South. By per- 
verse reiteration, its annals, its acts, its inner 
feelings, its purposes, have been grossly misre- 
presented. It is too late to repair the wrong, 
to atone for the neglect and the injuries of the 
1 2 Mad. Pap., 1104. ^ 6 Hist. 263. 



4 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

past. The restoration of the South to its true 
place in the story of the formation and the his- 
tory of our government, is the attempt, perhaps, 
presumptuous, of this volume. The true re- 
cord of the South, if it can be related with 
historic accuracy, is rich in patriotism, in intel- 
lectual force, in civic and military achieve- 
ments, in heroism, in honorable and sagacious 
statemanship, of a proper share in which no 
American can afford to deprive himself. So 
much genius in legislation, in administration, 
in jurisprudence, in war, such great capacities, 
should expel partisan and sectional prejudices. 

It is my purpose to inquire, Has the South 
made any special, distinctive contribution to 
the Constitution, the Government, Civilization, 
to Liberty, civil or religious, to National inde- 
pendence and honor, to pivotal epochs in our 
history? Have its thoughts moulded policy, 
formed parties, acquired territory, prevented 
national wrong? Have its men led armies, be- 
come great thinkers, impressed themselves 
beneficially upon our age and institutions ? The 
writer disclaims vehemently any wish to re-open 
settled controversies, to change the legitimate 
results of the secession war, and especially to 
arrest the rapid disappearance of sectional 
prejudices and animosities. The establishment 
of truth is never wrong. History, as written, 
if accepted in future years, will consign the 
South to infamy. If she were guilty of rebellion 
or treason, if she adopted and clung to barbar- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 



5 



isms, essential sins, and immoralities, then her 
people will be clothed, as it were, with the 
fabled shirt of Nessus, fatal to honor, to energy, 
to noble development, to true life. The English 
Rebellion of 1640, the Revolution of 1688, the 
Reformation, the Inquisition, even WelHngton 
at Waterloo, are discussed freely. Is there any 
sanctity or infallibility in acts and opinions, re- 
lating to the South, that they should escape 
historical criticism, or be exempt from all the 
tests of truth and justice? 



CHAPTER 11. 

In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh obtained from 
Queen Elizabeth the first patent, drawn accord- 
ing to the principles of the feudal law, in which 
patent he was constituted a lord proprietary 
with almost unlimited powers, holding juris- 
diction over an extensive region, of which he 
could make grants according to his pleasure/ 
Raleigh obtained from Parliament a bill con- 
firming his patent of discovery, and entered 
upon a plan of colonizing Virginia, the name 
by which his possessions were called in honor 
of her Majesty. The expedition landed on 
Roanoke Island ; but the effort was futile and 
the colony perished. 

In 1606, James I. issued an ample patent, 
and under this Virginia charter the whole 
American coast, to which the English laid 
claim, was divided into two parts, the Southern 
part being conferred on the London Company, 
and the Northern part upon the Plymouth 
Company. This division was the origin of 
the separate history of the Southern and the 
New England Colonies. With the charter as 
the starting point, may be traced the two 
diverging lines of development which mark the 

*3 Hakluyt, 297-301. i Bancroft, 92. 
6 



THE SOUTHERN STATES. 7 

constitutional genesis of Virginia and the South- 
ern Colonies on the one hand, and that of Massa- 
chusetts and the New England Colonies on 
the other.^ In 1609 and 1612, changes were 
made in the charter of Virginia, which con- 
tained the germ of a revolution, in giving to 
the corporation a democratic form. " Power 
was transferred from the Council to the Com- 
pany, and its sessions became the theatre of 
bold and independent discussion." The colo- 
nists were to have a share in legislation, and in 
1619 the first Colonial Assembly met at James- 
town. " The Governor, the newly appointed 
Council, and tAvo Representatives from each of 
the eleven boroughs, and hence called Bur- 
gesses, constituted the first popular representa- 
tive Assembly of the Western hemisphere. . . . 
This was the happy dawn of legislative liberty 
in America. . . . The deliberate and formal 
concession of legislative liberties was an act 
of the deepest interest. . . . The system of 
representative governm.ent and trial by jur}^ was 
established as an acknowledged right. . . . 
The ordinance was the basis on which Virginia 
erected the superstructure of its Hberties. Its 
influences were wide and enduring, and can be 
traced through all following years of the history 
of the colony. It constituted the plantation, 
in its infancy, a nursery of freemen.'" The 

1 Annals of the American Academy, April, 1S91, pp. 537-8- 

2 Fiske, Civil History of the United States Government, 145 ; 
i., Bancroft, 120, 136, 145^ I53, I53 ; i-, Hening's Statutes, 
57-66, no, ii3. 



8 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

Company acquired the distinct character of a 
body with administrative and legislative func- 
tions in the hands of the Council and of a 
General Assembly. This corporate constitu- 
tion of an English trading company, with 
executive, legislative, and judicial functions, 
furnished the type of the Colonial Constitution 
of Virginia. The general frame of government 
continued throughout the subsequent history. 
When the London Company was overthrown 
and Virginia became a royal colony, the gov- 
ernmental forms remained substantially the 
same, although modified in detail, sometimes 
by royal instructions, but generally by the 
legislation of the people themselves. 

By charters of 1620, 162 1, and 1628, the 
Plymouth Company, with the new name of the 
Massachusetts Bay Company, was substantially 
identical with the Virginia Company, and thus 
the same form of government became the 
model for the Colonies, both in the South and 
in New England. The " Fundamental Orders " 
of Connecticut in 1639 was, doubtless, the first 
example in history of a written constitution, 
enacted by the independent authority of the 
people, yet the form of government was simply 
a reproduction of that of the Massachusetts 
Bay Company. Upon territory granted to the 
London Company were afterwards erected the 
Colonies of Maryland and the Carolinas. The 
royal charter granted to Lord Baltimore, in 
1632, was the basis of all political power and 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. g 

privilege in ^^laryland. By the ordinance of 
1637, issued by the lord proprietor, the poli- 
tical organization was closely modeled after 
that of Virginia. The constitutional develop- 
ment of the other Southern Colonies followed, 
in the main, the same method of growth. The 
date of the Lords Proprietors' Charter for the 
Province of CaroHna is 1663; in 1719, the gov- 
ernment was changed to that of a Colony of 
the King of England. So by successive steps, 
with many vicissitudes, with varying fortunes, 
with some modifications, the general type 
was adopted, and ^Massachusetts, New Hamp- 
shire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, 
Virginia, North CaroHna, South CaroHna, and 
Georgia became separate political entities, with 
a common allegiance to, and dependence upon, 
the mother country^ of Great Britain. At the 
beginning of the Revolutionary War, three 
forms of government existed in the Colonies. 
In Rhode Island and Connecticut, the Govern- 
ors were elected by the people. In Mar>^land, 
Delaware, and Pennsylvania, the Governors 
were appointed by the proprietors. The King 
had no officers, except in the Admiralty Courts 
and in the Customs, and his name was hardly 
known in the acts of government. In the 
other colonies the Royal Governors were ap- 
pointed by the Crown.' 



CHAPTER III. 

In the colonial period there were thirteen 
commonwealths, with thirteen local govern- 
ments. Each colony, distinct in origin, was 
separate from, and independent of, the others; 
each was a dependency, and an integral part 
of the British Empire ; each was a creature of 
the British state, and legally subject to its 
sovereignty. The common bond of union was 
through the allegiance to the British Crown. 
The corporations, created by laws of Great 
Britain, scattered along the Atlantic coast, 
were as distinct and individual as are different 
railroad companies, which have severally ob- 
tained charters and grants of land from the 
United States.* In all that pertained to the 
regulation of their respective affairs, they acted 
singly. A British subject, residing within one 
of the Colonies, had, within the territory of the 
other Colonies, the common law rights of a 
British subject, but no more, and not other- 
wise, than he would have had in a British 
colony in Asia. Each colony had its legislative 
assembly, elected by its own people, and its 
separate judiciary. The basis of representa- 
tion was different. In Massachusetts townships 

^ Dr. Small's Beginnings of American Nationality, p. 14. 

10 



THE SOUTHERN STATES. n 

were the unit ; in Virginia, counties ; but in 
each the assembly was a representative body. 
The laws enacted had force, authority, sanc- 
tion, only within the Hmits of the colony, and 
had no extra-territorial validity. What Massa- 
chusetts did had no civil efficacy, no govern- 
mental sanction, over Connecticut or Rhode 
Island. 

This common dependence, this amenability 
to British law, juxtaposition on a remote con- 
tinent, sense of common danger from neigh- 
boring Indian tribes, and community of origin, 
language, literature, religion, and civil rights, 
naturally drew the Colonies into relationships 
of fraternity and friendship. Diversity of cli- 
mate and productions and interposed moun- 
tains sectionalize peoples, raise international 
problems, and provoke alienations. The eco- 
nomic history of the Colonies, if thoroughly ex- 
plored, would throw much needful light on their 
final union. This influence lessened colonial 
isolation, broadened the horizon of mutual in- 
terests, drew toward trade centres, and tended 
to develop a national character. Inter-com- 
munication, also, softened prejudices, promoted 
social intercourse, expanded trade, created a 
trend toward colonial fellowship and co-opera- 
tion. The coast trade supplemented the work 
and influence of the interior highways, and 
brought colonial interests into closer unity. 
Massachusetts, in 1636, the very year in which 
Hampden resisted the payment of ship money. 



12 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

asserted her exclusive power of taxation/ So 
did other colonies. In 1623 Virginia asserted 
the same separate power. In 165 1 a treaty was 
made between the Commonwealth of England 
and the Colony of Virginia, by which it was 
agreed that the Virginia colonist was as free as 
the English subject ; that the Assembly of Vir- 
ginia should transact all of her affairs ; that her 
people should have free trade with all nations, 
as the people of England had ; and that taxes 
should not be imposed, nor forts erected, nor 
garrisons maintained in Virginia, but by the 
consent of her Assembly.'^ The violation of the 
Navigation Acts of Cromwell and of Charles 
II., and of the Sugar Act of 1733,^ were proofs 
of the independent spirit of the colonists, and 
of their self-government in some economic mat- 
ters. On the other hand, there were elements, 
tending not to cohesion, but to division and 
segregation. In those days, the Colonies skirted 
thousands of miles of unfamiliar coast ; in the 
deficiency of means of intercourse, travel was 
slow, trade and commerce were limited and ex- 
pensive, and there were not a few local jeal- 
ousies. With the facilities for travel and trade 
which are so familiar at the present time, with 
the practical annihilation of space by steam 
and electricity, with the demonstrated experi- 
ment of a Federal Union, we fail to compre- 

^i Pitkin, 89-91. 

^ I Hen., Stat.^ 120, 363 et seq. 

^ I Burgess, 10, 99. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 3 

hend how widely separated were the Colonies 
in distance, in products, in industries, in social 
intercourse, in institutions. It has not been 
very long since our ablest statesmen doubted 
the feasibility of a government performing 
safely and wisely its functions over a large ter- 
ritorial area. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The centripetal forces were the stronger and 
the more numerous. There gradually grew up 
a desire for a closer political and commercial 
union ; and tentative efforts were made, at in- 
tervals, to bring about a confederation. As 
early as 1643, there was the New England Con- 
federacy for the recognition and protection of 
common interests. After this Confederacy 
ceased to exist, various plans, at different times, 
between 1684 and 1754, were proposed for a 
union of the Colonies, chiefly with reference to 
more efficient action against the Indians and 
the French. What was known as Franklin's 
Plan of Union, adopted by the Albany Conven- 
tion in 1754, was the most important Federal 
measure in the Colonies prior to the Revolution. 
Seven colonies were represented. "America," 
said Bancroft, " had never an assembly so ven- 
erable for the States that were represented, or 
for the great and able men who composed it." 
After several days* debate, the plan was 
adopted, either unanimously, or with the soli- 
tary dissent of Connecticut, as all felt the 
necessity for some union. *' With the excep- 
tion of such matters of general concern as were 
to be managed by the Grand Council, each 

14 



THE SOUTHERN STATES. 



15 



colony was to retain its power of legislation in- 
tact." ' 

It was rejected by all the colonial assemblies, 
the New England delegates, on the whole, 
being least disinclined to union. The failure 
of these attempts to obtain agreement upon 
plans of co-operation proves that the colonists 
were far from being ready to merge their sepa- 
rate interests into those of a comprehensive 
organization. Such an arrangement did not 
commend itself sufficiently to induce the taking 
of any effective steps towards it. The Colonies 
refused to make such corporate recognition of 
mutual relations as would be involved in the 
creation of organs for the performance of inter- 
colonial governmental functions. 

These incidents serve to illustrate the de- 
velopment of the idea of union, and to show 
the preparedness of the people for concerted 
action when the contest with Great Britain be- 
came inevitable. 

The Parliament of Great Britain never relin- 
quished her claim of right to govern the Colo- 
nies, or to collect revenues from them for any 
expenditures incurred in their behalf. This 
taxation was strenuously resisted by the Colo- 
nies, who, through their agents in London, 
or the local authorities at home, claimed the 
exclusive right to tax themselves, and especially 
as they had no representation in ParHament. 
In assertion of the imperial claim of sovereign 

1 Fiske's Am. Rev., 8. 10. 



1 6 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

power over the Colonies, and of the right to 
compel them, in whole or in part, to provide for 
the support of their military establishment, on 
27th of February, 1765, was passed the Stamp 
Act, imposing stamp duties on his Majesty's 
subjects in America and the West Indies. It 
seems that not a single member of either 
House of Parliament doubted the right to im- 
pose the duty, although some sagacious friends 
of liberty remonstrated against the policy and 
justice of such legislation. The Stamp Act 
was almost self-executory, for unless stamps 
were used, marriages would be null, notes of 
hand valueless, ships at sea prizes to the first 
captors,^ suits at law impossible, transfers of real 
estate invalid, inheritances irreclaimable. 

Boston,' with a keen instinct for liberty, and 
a sagacious apprehension of ev-erything that 
interfered with her rights, which have made 
her name immortal among the cities which 
have been most conspicuous in assertion and 
maintenance of popular freedom, even before 
the bill had passed, denied with earnestness 
any right to tax America, and sent a circular 
letter to the Colonies, exposing the dangers 
that menaced their essential rights, and desiring 
united assistance. Before the Bill, advised 
and proposed by Granville, had become a law, 
Samuel Adams, — called by Jefferson the Palin- 
urus of the American Revolution — in 1764, 
drew up, in one of the grandest papers of our 

^ 2 Ban. 287. ^ 2 Ban., 220-6. 



OF THE AMERICAN- UNION. ly 

whole Revolutionary period, the earliest pro- 
test against the Stamp Act in the memorable 
instructions to the Boston representatives in 
the General Court : " We claim British rights 
not by charter only ; we are born to them. Use 
your endeavors that the weight of other Ameri- 
can Colonies may be added to that of this 
Province, that by united application all may 
happily obtain redress." ' When the bill became 
a law, resistance was not, however, advised or 
deemed expedient. Every agent of the Colo- 
nies in England believed that the Stamp Act 
would be peacefully levied. Otis said, " It is 
our duty to submit, humbly and silently to 
acquiesce in all the decisions of the supreme 
legislature.'" The Legislature of Massachu- 
setts said, *' We must yield obedience to the act 
granting duties." Other colonies yielded to 
the hard necessity. Not so had Providence 
decreed, for opinion was fermenting at the 
North, notwithstanding there was no declared 
purpose of action. This Stamp Act was in 
reality the harbinger of our independence. Vir- 
ginia received it with consternation, and re- 
solved that it should recoil with damage upon 
the land which adopted it. The planters, 
proud of their frugaHty, banished articles of 
luxury of English manufacture.^ The Legisla- 
ture, not content with a verbal protest, was 

^ Winthrop's Centennial Oration, July 4, 1876, pp. 15, 33. 
2 2 Ban., 286-306 ; i Henry, 94. 
^ 2 Ban., 312. 



1 8 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

averse to submission to the will of Parliament. 
Under the leadership of Patrick Henry, the 
taxation was declared to be an infringement of 
the privileges, liberties, and immunities of the 
colony, subversive of the fundamental princi- 
ples of her chartered rights, and destructive of 
British as well as American freedom. This was 
the first legislative opposition to the scheme of 
the Stamp Act. The alarm spread throughout 
America with astonishing quickness, and " the 
great point of resistance to British taxation was 
universally established in the Colonies." ^ Se- 
cret societies, whose proceedings and actions 
after awhile transpired, were formed in the 
several colonies, pledging resistance by all law- 
ful means. Uprisings began in Boston, and 
were followed by similar disturbances in other 
towns of Massachusetts, and in other colonies. 
Before the time arrived when the Act was to 
go into effect, the standard of resistance had 
been raised throughout the Colonies ; and 
Burke,^ in the House of Commons, declared, on 
the information received from the several 
Governors, that the Virginia resolutions were 
the cause of the insurrections. Virginia thus 
*' rang the alarum bell " and " gave the signal for 
the continent."^ 

James Otis, of Boston, advised the calling of 
an American Congress at New York, to consist 
of Committees from each of the thirteen colo- 

^ I Life of Henry, 8i 

^ I Henry, lOO. ^2 Ban., 312-16. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 



19 



nies, to deliberate upon the Acts of Parliament, 
and to consider a united representation to im- 
plore relief.' South Carolina heard and heeded 
the invitation for a conference. '' Had it not 
been for South Carolina, no Congress would 
then have happened," said " the great states- 
man, the magnanimous, unwavering, faultless 
lover of his country, Christopher Gadsden." 
** As the united American people spread 
through the vast expanse over which their 
jurisdiction now extends, be it remembered," 
says Bancroft, ''that the blessing of Union is 
due to the warm-heartedness of South Carolina." 
In Georgia, against the will of the Governor, 
the representatives came together and sent, 
near a thousand miles by land, an express mes- 
senger to New York, promising adhesion ; for, 
said they, " No people, as individuals, can 
more warmly espouse the common cause than 
do the people of this Province." 

The Congress met on the 7th of October, 
1765.^ Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode 
Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and South 
Carolina were represented by regularly chosen 
delegates. Delaware, New Jersey, New York, 
had less formal delegates. New Hampshire 
agreed to abide by the result. Georgia sent a 
special messenger to the body to obtain a copy 
of the proceedings. Governor Fauquier would 
not suffer the Assembly of Virginia to come to- 
gether to express the unanimous voice of her 

1 2 Ban., 317, 318. ^ 2 Ban., 372. 



20 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

people in behalf of liberty. The members of 
this first union of the American people were 
elected by the representatives of the people of 
each separate colony ; all were commissioned 
not so regularly. While they formed one body, 
their power was derived from independent 
sources. Each of the colonies existed in its in- 
dividuality, and notwithstanding great differ- 
ences in their respective populations and extent 
of territory, as they met in Congress, they 
recognized each other as equals, without the 
least claim of pre-eminence, one over the other. 
The Congress, avoiding the argument for 
American liberty from royal grants, claiming 
rights that preceded and would survive char- 
ters, in carefully considered documents em- 
bodied the demands of the colonies, and dwelt 
on the inherent right of trial by jury, and the 
right of freedom from taxation, except through 
the respective colonial legislatures.^ The As- 
sembly of South Carolina received the dele- 
gates on their return, adopted without change, 
and, lacking one vote, with unanimity, the re- 
solves of Congress, and transmitted, without 
delay, to England, " the evidence that South 
Carolina gave its heart unreservedly to the 
cause of freedom and union." ^ She wrote to her 
agent in London : " Every moment is tedious ; 
should you have to communicate the good news 
we wish for, send it to us, if possible, by a mes- 
senger swifter than the wind." 

* I Pitkin, 442-6. ^ 2 Ban., 408. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 21 

The resolute purpose of the colonists that 
the Stamp Act should not be enforced so far 
prevailed that it was repealed by Parliament, 
many lords and bishops entering their solemn 
protest, and the King deploring its repeal as the 
wellspring of all his sorrows. South Carolina 
voted a statue to Pitt ; Virginia voted one to 
the King for his assent, and an obelisk on 
which were to be engraved the names of those 
who, in England, had signalized themselves for 
freedom. 

The universal joy of America was unfortu- 
nately of short duration. The repeal of the 
Stamp Act was accompanied by a formal as- 
sertion of the full power and authority of the 
King and Parliament to make laws and statutes 
of sufficient force and validity to bind the 
Colonies and the people of America, " in all 
cases whatsoever." The claim of absolute 
authority was not long left in inaction. The 
Legislatures were required to support the sol- 
diers quartered in the Colonies. Besides the 
billeting Act, port duties were laid on wine, oil, 
fruits, glass, paper, lead, colors, and tea. The 
Colonies were indignant at this imposition of 
new taxes, and this continued and offensive as- 
sertion of the unHmited power of Parhament.' 
In Massachusetts resistance was planned, and a 
Circular Letter to the sister Colonies was 
adopted. The Assembly of Virginia, which 
had been prorogued from time to time since its 

' 2 Ban., 141. 



22 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

session of November, 1766/ was called together 
in 1768, to devise measures for the prevention 
of Indian troubles. The Circular of Massachu- 
setts was referred to a Committee of the Whole 
House. Petitions from freeholders of various 
counties, remonstrating against Acts of ParHa- 
ment, fortified the courage of the members, who 
adopted unanimously memorials to England.'^ 
Massachusetts was commended for her devotion 
to civil liberty, and the Speaker was directed 
to write to the Speakers of all other Assem- 
blies, making known her proceedings, and her 
opinions as to the need of firm and united 
opposition to every measure affecting their 
rights and liberties. In 1769, Washington said 
'' something should be done to maintain the 
liberty we have derived from our ancestors," 
and he prepared a scheme, to be offered at 
the coming session of the House of Burgesses. 
In this House were Washington, Henry, and 
Jefferson. Demands by the Custom-house offi- 
cers for writs of assistance in collection of 
revenues were declared illegal by the highest 
court. The Legislature claimed the exclusive 
right of imposing taxes on the inhabitants, and 
asserted the lawfulness and expediency of pro- 
curing a concert of the Colonies to care for 
their violated rights. Being dissolved by the 
Governor, they met together as patriots and 
friends, and adopted Washington's plan of non- 

' I Henry, 13, 

^3 Ban., 162-3, 'i Henry, 133-142. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 



23 



importation, and further made a special cove- 
nant not to import slaves, nor purchase any 
imported. Every colony South followed the 
example, and adopted the resolves of Vir- 
ginia. North Carolina offered the first armed 
resistance to British authority, and at Ala- 
mance, in 1 77 1, was shed the first blood in the 
struggle for liberty. South Carolina enforced 
the agreement of not importing by publishing 
as enemies the names of those who kept aloof 
from the association. She remitted to the 
society in London for supporting the Bill of 
Rights 10,500 pounds currency, that the liber- 
ties of Great Britain and America might alike 
be protected. In 1772, as the Government 
refused to pass any appropriations which should 
cover the grant to the Society for the Bill 
of Rights, the members declined to take any 
pay, and the planters ever stood ready to lend 
their purses and private credit to the wants of 
their agents or committees.^ 

Trescott, in an address before the South 
Carolina Historical Society, speaks of the char- 
acter of Carolinians — a blending of English 
settlers and Huguenot immigrants — as *' a 
character in which was fused, in admirable pro- 
portion, the strong will, the enterprise patient 
but bold, the rough truthfulness of the English 
mind, with the enthusiasm and quick facility 
and graceful courtesy of the French temper." 
The independence of the agriculturist and 

1 3 Ban., 312, 



24 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

director of labor, rather than a laborer, " natur- 
ally created great tenacity of rights and a 
watchful and resentful jealousy of any outside 
interference — a jealousy encouraged both by 
public opinion and legislation, on account of 
the necessity of sustaining the master's author- 
ity as the guarantee of the safety of society." 
This very jealousy and independence engen- 
dered, as its necessary complement, a remark- 
able and sensitive regard for the rights of 
others. 

The evolution of committees of correspon- 
dence, so necessary to concerted action, which 
had been put in operation in Massachusetts by 
Samuel Adams, was in the direction of a closer 
union of the Colonies. Bancroft said ''whether 
that great idea should become a reality depended 
on Virginia." ^ In 1773, its Legislature came to- 
gether full of a patriotism which was not confined 
to the limits of their own colony. Approving of 
the resolute proceedings of the city of Boston 
and of the colony of Massachusetts, a system of 
intercolonial committees of correspondence, in- 
cluding a thorough union of councils, was 
adopted. The resolutions were transmitted to 
every colony with a request that each would 
appoint its committee to communicate from 
time to time with that of Virginia. '' In this 
manner Virginia laid the foundations of our 
Union." " Massachusetts organized a province, 
Virginia promoted a confederacy. Were the 

* 3 Ban. , ch. xxv. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 2$ 

several committees but to come together the 
world would see an American Congress." ' Such 
was the anticipation from this action which 
so gladdened patriotic Massachusetts. Sam. 
Adams, writing to Richard Henry Lee, said 
that Virginia and South Carolina, by their 
steady perseverance, inspired the hope that 
liberty would spread through the continent. 
A copy of the Proceedings was sent to every 
town and district in Massachusetts, " that all 
the friends of American independence and free- 
dom might welcome the intelligence." 

^ 3 Ban., 502-4. 



CHAPTER V. 

In 1767, duties were levied on tea and 
other articles, which duties were to be used in 
paying the salaries of royal Governors and of 
the justices, appointed at the King's pleasure. 
The object of this legislation was clearly not 
" to regulate trade, but to assert British supre- 
macy over the Colonies at the expense of their 
political freedom." In 1769 all obnoxious acts 
except the tea-duty were repealed. The policy 
of non-importation had pressed with severity 
on the commerce of New York, and her mer- 
chants complained that the fire-eating planters 
of Virginia and the farmers of Massachusetts 
were growing rich at the expense of their 
neighbors. They, therefore, sent orders to 
England for all sorts of merchandise, except 
tea, and virtually, within their limits, overthrew 
the non-importation policy upon which the 
patriots mainly relied to force the repeal of the 
Tea Act. Their conduct was vehemently de- 
nounced, especially by the two States, then and 
in the immediately subsequent years in such 
close sympathy with each other. 

The year 1774 opened with questions of 
deepest import to American liberty. The as- 
sociations, entered into against the use of tea, 

26 



THE SOUTHERN STATES, 2/ 

were so extensive and effective, that the Brit- 
ish Ministry were foiled in their attempt to 
raise a revenue from that source. The Colonies 
all declined to take tea, on any terms, and Par- 
liament devised an expedient of exempting the 
East India Company from the heavy export 
duty, or allowing a drawback on all duties on 
tea imported by the Company, in consideration 
of which the Company was to send out to the 
Colonies large cargoes of tea. Numerous ships 
laden with tea arrived about the end of 1773 
at New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Charles- 
ton. In New York, eighteen chests were 
emptied into " the slip." How the boxes con- 
signed to Boston were disposed of all the world 
knows. The action of the city was bold and 
patriotic. This notable event was supremely 
important to all mankind. It is not so well 
known that South Carolina, deeply agitated at 
the time by the arbitrary imprisonment of a 
publisher, did not allow her attention to be di- 
verted from watching the ships which contained 
the offensive cargo. On the 2d of December, 
two hundred and fifty-seven chests arrived. The 
consignees were persuaded to resign. After the 
twentieth day, the collector seized the dutiable 
article. There was no one to sell, or to pay 
the duty, and the tea perished in the cellars 
where it was stored. In Philadelphia, the con-- 
signees were forced to resign, and the captain 
set sail straightway for England. In October, 
1774, the brig, Peggy Stuart, with her cargo of 



28 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

tea, was burned at Annapolis, in open day, by 
men who boldly assumed the responsibility of 
the act. 

These acts of resistance to imperial tyranny 
kindled in the mother country a resentful and 
revengeful feeling, which found intemperate ex- 
pression in a bill for closing the port of Boston, 
in fundamental alterations in the colonial gov- 
ernment of Massachusetts, in virtual indemnity 
for crimes committed under color of official 
authority, and in new orders for quartering 
troops/ Boston was selected as the place to 
try the question of the power of Parliament, 
and nobly did the city, placed in " the front 
rank of the conflict " and the Colony of Massa- 
chusetts meet the question of Independence. 
The news of the passage of the Boston Port 
Bill, as a punishment for the destruction of 
the tea, reached the Virginia Legislature, in 
session at Williamsburg, and produced a pro- 
found impression, because it was felt that the 
crisis was imminent. The Governor dissolved 
the House of Burgesses for setting apart a day 
of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, to implore 
the Divine interposition for averting the 
calamity of civil war, and to give the people of 
America one heart and one mind firmly to op- 
pose every invasion of their rights. The mem- 
bers re-assembled, denounced the Act for shut- 
ting up the harbor and commerce of Boston, 
'' in Qwr sister colony of Massachusetts Bay," 
' I Rives's :/^(?(/, , 41- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 



29 



declared an attack made on one of the colonies 
to compel submission to arbitrary taxes to be 
an attack on all, and recommended the ap- 
pointment of deputies from the several colonies 
to meet annually in General Congress to delib- 
erate on those general measures which the 
united interests of America may from time to 
time require. A convention was called to meet 
in Williamsburg to consider measures for the 
protection of American liberty and to appoint 
deputies to the proposed Continental Congress. 
A large majority of the counties held meetings 
calling for efficient measures of retaliation and 
self-protection. As the decisive hour came 
nearer, a unity of interest led to a mutual deter- 
mination to support each other and especially 
to sustain the Colonies, against which the meas- 
ures of the Crown were directed with the great- 
est severity. Massachusetts, June 17, 1774/ 
agreed to this " meeting of committees from 
the several colonies to determihe upon wise 
measures to be recommended to all the 
colonies." Other colonies assented, and on 
Monday, September 5, 1774, the delegates, ap- 
pointed by the several colonies and provinces, 
acting separately, — Georgia not being repre- 
sented — assembled in Congress at Philadelphia. 
It was of this body that Chatham used the re- 
markable tribute : " For myself I must declare 
and avow, that in all my reading of history and 
observation— and it has been my favorite study 

^ Afu. Archives, 4th series, 350-1, 421-2. 



30 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

— that for solidity of reasoning, force of 
sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion under such 
a complication of difficult circumstances, no 
nation or body of men can stand in preference 
to the General Congress at Philadelphia." 

This body met for an emergency ; but events 
ripened so fast, and the needs for conference 
and united action so increased and continued, 
that for seven years it sat and exercised ex 
necessitate some of the highest functions of a 
national government. As early as January, 
1775, a military company was organized, in 
nearly every county in Virginia, to prepare for 
any extremity, and to meet danger whenever it 
might appear. Washington declared himself 
ready to raise and subsist at his own expense a 
body of a thousand men for the defence and 
the liberties of his country. On the 15th of 
June, on motion of Thomas Johnson of Mary- 
land, Congress appointed that " illustrious 
Southerner" a general, *'to command all the 
continental forces to be raised for the defence of 
American liberty." In accepting the command, 
he said, that, during his service, he would receive 
no pay or allowance, incidental to the place. 
In 1775 a Convention assembled in Richmond 
and ordered the raising of three regiments, se- 
lected their officers, passed other warlike meas- 
ures, and appointed a Committee of Safety, 
consisting of eleven of the most honored mem- 
bers, including Pendleton, Mason, Bland, etc. To 
them were committed such executive functions 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 31 

as were in abeyance in consequence of the hos- 
tile attitude of Governor Dunmore. This, per- 
haps, was the most important of all similar 
assemblies. The patriots of the body felt that 
the time for petition and remonstrance had 
about expired. The appeals to British justice 
and magnanimity were impotent. Mr. Henry's 
speech in old St. John's Church is historic. 
Arming the colony for defence was a bold step 
from which there was no retreat. It met the 
support of every county, and the other States, 
following the lead of Virginia, came cour- 
ageously to the acceptance of all the hazards 
which the determination to protect the rights 
of person and property might involve. In 
1773, North Carolina resolved in favor of com- 
munication and concert, and her readiness at 
all times to exert her efforts to preserve and 
defend her rights. In 1774, her people as- 
sembled independent of royal authority and 
declared that no person should be taxed with- 
out consent in person or through representa- 
tive ; that the tax on tea and other articles by 
the British Parliament was illegal and oppres- 
sive ; that the Boston Port Act was unconsti- 
tutional. The Assembly also approved of a 
General Congress in Philadelphia, and appoint- 
ed delegates thereto. In 1775, the Assembly 
approved of the proceedings of the Philadel- 
phia Congress. About the same time (May 
1775) — as is alleged but not sufficiently proved 
— the people of Mecklenburg County took a 



32 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

bolder step than had been taken either by Con- 
gress or colony, declared for freedom and inde- 
pendence, and forwarded the Declaration to 
the Continental Congress by Captain James 
Jack. The Provincial Congress of North Caro- 
lina at Halifax, on the 4th April, 1776, passed 
a resolution unanimously, empowering the dele- 
gates to concur with delegates from other colo- 
nies in declaring independence and forming 
foreign alliances, " reserving to the colony the 
sole and exclusive right of forming a constitu- 
tion and laws for this colony," and at that time 
one third of her adult white population was in 
the field. 

A convention in Virginia, in May, 1776, 
unanimously instructed her delegates to pro- 
pose to Congress to declare the United Colo- 
nies free and independent States. In defer- 
ence to this instruction, the responsibility was 
assumed of proposing the measure uncondi- 
tionally, and thus the 4th of July became im- 
mortal. 

This Congress, for whose duration no pre- 
cise time was assigned, was appointed for the 
sole purpose of taking into consideration the 
general condition of the Colonies, and of recom- 
mending measures for the security of their 
rights and interests. Strictly speaking, the 
Congress had no authority for making the 
Declaration, which of itself had no legal 
validity. The Colonies owed allegiance to the 
King of Great Britain, as the head of each 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 



33 



colonial government, and were extremely de- 
sirous of continuing their connection with the 
parent country, and Congress was charged with 
the duty of devising such measures as would 
enable them to do so, without involving- a sur- 
render of their rights as British subjects. 

To terminate political connection with Eng- 
land was not desired except by a few of the 
most resolute. A peaceful solution of the 
troubles was generally desired and expected. 
The measures of the Colonies were not to in- 
volve a separation. In 1775, it was said by 
Jefferson and others that the armies were not 
raised to establish independent States. At that 
time, such was the avowed opinion of Washing- 
ton, Warren and the Continental Congress. 
Nearly up to the 4th of July, the Congress 
held out the hope of reconciliation. The effort 
was honest to secure liberty and constitutional 
right, without being forced to extreme action. 
Protestations of unwillingness to do anything 
which involved a want of fidelity to the Crown 
were frequent and earnest.' The Declaration 
was the outcome of prolonged discussion, and 
of hopelessness in resisting arbitrary measures, 
while in union with the mother country. When 
no other course was compatible with self-re- 
spect, the pressure of liberty compelled the 
tearing asunder of the ties of allegiance and 
union, and Virginia and Massachusetts went 
hand in hand in leading the rupture. The 

' I. He7iry, 363, 366, 371. 
3 



34 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

distinguished scholar, statesman and patriot, 
Robert C. Winthrop, bears this generous testi- 
mony to Virginia. *' It is hardly too much to 
say that the destinies of our country, at that 
period, hung and hinged upon her action, and 
upon the action of her great and glorious 
sons. ... It was Union which opened 
our Independence, and there could have 
been no Union without the influence and 
co-operation of that great leading Southern 
Colony.'* 

All the acts of Congress, before and after the 
plain and explicit Declaration, that the Colonies 
were, and of right ought to be, free and inde- 
pendent States, were with a full reliance that 
those States would ratify whatever might be 
done for the public good. The States were 
not bound by any resolves of Congress, except 
so far as they separately authorized their dele- 
gates to bind them. In literal truth the Con- 
gress had no power of government at all. It 
could not pass an obligatory law, nor devise 
any obligatory sanction. Up to the ratification 
of the articles of Confederation, the Congress 
was without any right or authority, except what 
was derived from the consent, direct or implied, 
and the acquiescence of the several States, and 
when specific grants of power were called for, 
each representative applied to his own State 
alone, and not to any other. 

The Declaration of Independence in its legal 
significance is much misunderstood. It created 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 35 

no institutions, was in no sense a charter of 
government, or of a constitution. An appeal 
to it as a source of congressional power is illogi- 
cal. The Colonies politically sustained the 
same relation to one another after as they did 
before. The Declaration looked only to their 
relation to their mother country, to independ- 
ence of unconstitutional parliamentary or min- 
isterial dictation. The sole question decided 
was whether they should continue in a state of 
dependence on the British Crown. In declar- 
ing that all political connection between them 
and Great Britain ceased, they became, accord- 
ing to their Declaration, not an independent 
nation, but free and independent States ; and 
their separate legislative power was left com- 
plete. The common executive authority was 
cast off, and each State established a separate 
Executive authority for itself. The resolutions 
of the Colonies, authorizing the declaration, 
made an express condition, in conferring the 
power, that the colony, or new State, should 
retain the sole and exclusive right of forming 
its own government, and of regulating its in- 
ternal concerns and police. The united voice gave 
moral force, but did not add a particle, in law 
or right, to the independence of a colony. 
Each had the same right to declare indepen- 
dence as all. The declaration was a solemn 
asseveration of the severance of the tie which 
bound the colonists to England, and of the 
separateness and independence of the States. 



36 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

The sovereignty of the British Crown had not 
been jointly over all, but separately over each, 
might have been abandoned as to some, and 
retained as to others ; and when the Colonies be- 
came free States, that sovereignty was not in the 
Congress, but in the separate, individual States. 
The Declaration, then, was impotent to make 
the people of the Colonies one people, or to 
invest them with paramount and sovereign 
authority. The naked historical facts must 
decide that question. 

The Congress was appointed by colonies in 
their separate capacity, each acting for itself, 
and not conjointly with another. Each colony 
gave its own vote *' by its own representative 
and the Colonies voted on the adoption of the 
Declaration in their separate character, each 
giving one vote by all its representatives, who 
acted in strict obedience to specific instructions 
from their respective colonies, and the mem- 
bers signed the Declaration in that way." 
*' The declaration was a joint expression of 
separate wills ; each expressing its own will and 
not that of any other ; each bound by its own 
act, and not responsible for the act of any 
other." The Colonies had " no common legis- 
lature, no common treasury, no common mili- 
tary power, no common judicatory." *' They 
were established at different times, and each 
under an authority from the crown which 
applied to itself alone. They were not even 
alike in their organization. Some were pro- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 



37 



vincial, some proprietary, and some were charter 
governments." ^ 

A proposition expressed in the Declaration, 
made up, said Senator Choate of Massachusetts, 
" of glittering and sounding generalities of natu- 
ral right," — All men are created equal— was 
unnecessarily stated, and had "no necessary 
part of our justification in separation from the 
parent country and declaring ourselves indepen- 
dent. Breach of our chartered privileges and 
lawless encroachment on our acknowledged and 
well-established rights by the parent country 
were the real causes and of themselves suf^cient 
without resorting to any others to justify the 
step, nor had it any weight in constructing the 
governments which were substituted in place 
of the colonial. They were formed of the old 
materials and on practical and well-established 
principles, borrowed, for the most part, from 
our own experience and that of the country 
from which we sprang." In the popular 
mind, in party platforms, in common quota- 
tion, the assertion of the Declaration has been 
enlarged and amplified into an axiom, or a po- 
litical truth, that all men are born free and 
equal. This hypothetical truism will not bear 
investigation. In no possible sense in which it 
can be viewed, is it historically, politically, 
ethnologically, individually true. Men are not 
born, nor created, free or equal. In 1848, 
Mr. Calhoun exposed the fallacy. "The 

1 Upshur, 23, 27, 45, 40, 15- 



38 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

quantum of power on the part of the govern- 
ment and of hberty on the part of individuals, 
instead of being equal in all cases, must neces- 
sarily be very unequal among different people, 
according to their different conditions. For 
just in proportion as a people are ignorant, 
stupid, debased, corrupt, exposed to violence 
within and dangers from without, the power 
necessary for government to possess in order to 
preserve society against anarchy and destruction 
becomes greater and greater and individual lib- 
erty less and less, until the lowest condition is 
reached, when absolute and despotic power be- 
comes necessary on the part of the government 
and individual liberty extinct. So, on the con- 
trary, just as the people rise in the scale of intelli- 
gence, virtue and patriotism, and the more per- 
fectly they become acquainted with the nature 
of government, the ends for which it was or- 
dered and how it ought to be administered, and 
the less the tendency to violence and disorder 
within and danger from abroad, the power 
necessary for government becomes less and less 
and individual liberty greater and greater. In- 
stead, then, of all men having the same right to 
liberty and equality, as is claimed by those who 
hold that they are born free and equal, liberty 
is the noblest and highest reward bestowed on 
mental and moral development combined with 
favorable circumstances. Instead, then, of lib- 
erty and equality being born with men, instead 
of all men and all classes and all descriptions 



OF THE AMERICAN- UNION. 



39 



being equally entitled to them, they are high 
prizes to be won, and are, in their most perfect 
state, not only the highest reward that can be 
bestowed on our race, but the most difficult to 
be won, and when won the most difficult to be 
preserved. They have been made vastly more 
so by the dangerous error, that all men are born 
free and equal, as if those high qualities be- 
longed to men without effort to acquire them, 
and to all equally alike, regardless of their in- 
tellectual and moral condition. The attempt to 
carry into practice this, the most dangerous of 
all political errors, and to bestow on all without 
regard to their fitness, either to acquire or to 
maintain liberty — that unbounded and individ- 
ual liberty, supposed to belong to man in the 
hypothetical and misnamed state of nature, — 
has done more to retard the cause of liberty 
and civilization, and is doing more at present, 
than all other causes combined. While it is 
powerful to pull down governments, it is still 
more powerful to prevent their construction on 
proper principles." These are the opinions of 
a great statesman, looking at the axiom as a 
man of poHtical affairs, from the government 
side. In the Nineteenth Century for 1890, Pro- 
fessor Huxley considers these natural and po- 
Htical rights as a scientist and a philosopher. 
He traces this axiom, assumed to represent ab- 
solute truth, behind Locke and Rousseau to Ul- 
pian. " Quod ad jus naturale attinet omnes 
homines cequales sunt!' "■ Quum jure naturali 



40 THE SOUTHER]^ STATES 

omnes liber i nascentury Huxley says this is 
the ne plus ultra of individualism, and wherever 
individualism has unchecked sway, a polity can 
no more exist than it can among the tigers who 
inhabit the same jungle. It is, in fact, the sum 
of all possible anti-social and anarchic tenden- 
cies. '' The political delusions which spring 
from the natural-rights doctrine are multitudin- 
ous, . . . probably none has been more mis- 
chievous than the assertion that all men have a 
natural right to freedom. . . . That which it 
would be tyranny to prevent in some states 
of society it would be madness to permit in 
others. . . . There is not the least connection 
between the natural rights of the solitary indi- 
vidual and the moral and civil rights of the man 
who has entered into association with others." 
From the first settlement of the country, the 
colonies had their separate governments. Each 
had its own local life, its local pride and patriot- 
ism, its separate affairs, and often internal dis- 
cussions were stormy. Not unfrequently there 
were stout contests with their governors. Each 
colony was regarded as the only political power 
competent to lay taxes, and it was mainly to 
protect from encroachment or usurpation this 
right that the colonies were forced into a war, 
into a kind of political union, into a reluctant 
throwing off of allegiance to the mother coun- 
try. During the war, all the States — except 
Connecticut and Rhode Island, whose charters 
continued to do duty as State constitutions till 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 41 

far into the nineteenth century, until 18 18 
and 1842 respectively — remodeled their govern- 
ments, adapting them to changed conditions, 
to the cessation of loyalty to a foreign power, 
to the emergence from subordination to inde- 
pendence.' As charters lost their validity, 
other organizations became indispensable for 
the control of corporate affairs. The people 
either authorized or recognized them as the 
organs of popular rights, of self-government, 
and acquiesced in the assumption or exercise 
of every essential power of government.^ This 
reorganization of colonial corporations into dis- 
tinct commonwealths was not revolutionary, 
nor destructive of existing rights, but a deliber- 
ate and intelligent act of wise constructive 
statesmanship. The new constitutions followed 
very literally English precedents and principles. 
What we boast of in our triumphant democracy, 
and in our patriotic anniversary jubilations, 
are, with few exceptions, the birthrights of 
EngHshmen. Freedom of religion, a written 
constitution, State autonomy, and better-defined 
Home Rule, and abolition of classes and he- 
reditary distinctions, nearly exhaust what dif- 
ferentiates us from the government of Great 
Britain. Magna Charta, Habeas Corpus, trial 
by jury, freedom of speech and of the press, 
the common law^ division of government into 
three departments, division of the legislature 

^ Fiske's Critical Period of American History , 64, 65. 
2 Small, 76. 



42 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

into two branches, representation of the people, 
responsibility of those in authority, govern- 
ments deriving their just powers from the con- 
sent of the governed, are all of English origin. 
Since the revolution of 1688, regal right in 
England, said Gladstone, has been expressly 
founded upon contracts, and the breach of the 
contract destroys the title to the allegiance of 
the subject. 

On the first day of May, 1776, the General 
Court of Massachusetts passed a solemn act, to 
erase forthwith the name of the King and the 
year of his reign from all civil commissions, 
writs and precepts ; and to substitute therefor 
" the year of the Christian Era, and the name 
of the Government and People of Massachusetts 
Bay in New England." On the 15th of May, 
1776, Virginia renounced her colonial depen- 
dence on Great Britain ; on the 12th of 
June, adopted her famous Bill of Rights, in 
which were summed up so compactly and 
luminously the great fundamental principles 
of liberty ; and on the 29th of the same 
month, before the adoption of the Declaration 
of Independence by Congress, performed the 
highest function of State sovereignty by estab- 
lishing, of her own free and sovereign will, a 
constitution which continued until 1829. She 
did not ask the permission of Congress, nor 
submit her new form of government to the 
revision of that body. The Legislature entered 
upon a series of measures, such as an effort at 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 



43 



religious liberty/ abolition of entails, etc., which 
were not consummated until a later day. They 
swept away the last vestiges of the aristocratic 
system, and made the social and political system 
conform to the philosophy and principles of the 
Bill of Rights. This constitution, which sur- 
vived unchanged for three quarters of a century, 
established a conservative government, adminis- 
tered on popular principles, the object being in 
part to '' avoid creating a numerous Democ- 
racy." 

It is foreign to my purpose to give a contin- 
uous, or the briefest mention of the operations 
of the Revolutionary war, which terminated 
with the Treaty of Peace, solemnly acknowledg- 
ing the colonies, naming each, separately and 
specifically, to be free, sovereign and indepen- 
dent States. It needs only to be said, in illus- 
tration of the subject, that the sacrifices and 
deeds of the South were unsurpassed. After 
providing for military establishment for State 
and Continental service, when disasters came 
or were threatened, Virginia, in 1776, stimulated 
in every way the recruiting of levies. She de- 
clared her purpose to bear her full share of the 
burdens and perils. She invested Governor 
and Council with unlimited power to call forth 

^ The Virginia Act for Religious Freedom, i6th December, 
1785, drawn by Jefferson, says : " That all men shall be free to 
profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in mat- 
ters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, 
change, or affect their civil capacities." 



44 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

any amount of military force, in addition to 
what was provided by law, and to send assist- 
ance to " any sister State " invaded, or threat- 
ened with invasion. She exhorted the Legisla- 
tures of the several States to adopt most speedy 
and effectual methods for calling their military 
force into action/ 

Nothing could be more remote from my in- 
tention or feeling than to underrate or minimize 
the patriotic and noble efforts of other colonies, 
or to be guilty of the presumption of claiming 
any superiority of sacrifice or devotion to lib- 
erty on the part of the South. The aim is to 
secure justice, too much withheld, for the 
South, and to bring into proper recognition the 
indebtedness of the cause and the country to 
the Southern States. After the Long Island 
campaign of 1776, Adjutant General Reed de- 
clared that *' the gallantry of the Southern 
men has inspired the whole army." Botta 
says of 1777, "the obstinate resistance of the 
Virginians, and the disasters of the partisans of 
England in South Carolina precluded all hope 
of success in these two colonies." The resist- 
ance was so successful that for nearly three 
years the Carolinas were free from the presence 
of the enemy. No candid historian can with- 
hold from the Southern Colonies the meed of 
equal devotion and sacrifices in the Revolution- 
ary conflict, in the days which tried men's souls, 

* I Rives's Mad., 177, 272, 274, 437. yoiirnal of House oj 
Delegates, 1776. October Session, pp. 106-108. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 45 

and when the difficulties of a prompt and full 
response to the requisitions of the Continental 
Congress and the needs of the feeble army were 
almost insuperable. Mar\'land, Virginia, the 
Carolinas, and Georgia, in the supply of men, 
money and munitions, were as prompt and 
liberal as were their confederates. It may be 
conceded that many of the inhabitants of 
Georgia and South Carolina were slow to break 
their ancient friendship with the land of their 
ancestors. England had favored and fostered 
them, and the colonial authorities were com- 
paratively mild and beneficent. The people 
did not feel the burdens and injustices com- 
plained of by others. Commercial restrictions 
were not onerous. Their products were much 
in demand abroad, and commanded remuner- 
ative prices. There was little beyond sympathy 
with fellow-colonists and abstract love of liberty 
and self-government to excite disaffection tow- 
ards, or withdrawals from, the mother country. 
Georgians and South Carolinians were closely 
allied in neighborhood, in habits, sentiments, 
pursuits, interest, and social intercourse. When 
the struggle became military, a diversity of 
opinion arrayed families in deadly feuds, and 
as population was scarce, and means of travel 
were primitive, there was engendered a unique 
partisan war, bold in its conception, sleepless in 
activity, and brilliant in its performances. After 
the battle of Monmouth, the tide of war turned 
southward. Organized resistance almost ceased 



46 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

in Georgia and South Carolina, after the failure 
of General Lincoln in Charleston and General 
Gates in Camden, and Cornwallis then deter- 
mined to subjugate North Carolina. How he 
failed, can be best read in the battles of King's 
Mountain, Cowpens, Guilford Court House, 
and Eutaw Springs. The masterly outwitting 
of Cornwallis and Tarleton by the accomplished 
Greene, second only to Washington as a com- 
mander, was accomplished almost entirely with 
soldiers from Maryland, Virginia, and the Caro- 
linas. The battle of King's Mountain drove 
Cornwallis back into South Carolina ; the defeat 
of the Cowpens made his second invasion of 
North Carolina a desperate enterprise ; the 
battle at Guilford Court House transformed 
the American Army into pursuers, the British 
into fugitives. By these exploits the war was 
nearly brought to a close, and independence 
secured, for a little later the drama- was ended 
by the surrender at Yorktown.* When Sir 
Henry Clinton reduced Charleston, and over- 
ran the country, and Cornwallis found Gates, 
in his weakness and incapacity, an easy victim, 
and tempting inducements were offered to 
resume ancient relations, the most fervent and 
faithful patriotism and courage were needed to 
resist the rewards that were offered, and to 
stand up against the cruelties and outrages 
which followed fidelity to the American cause.' 

* See Edward Graham Daves's Maryland and North 
Carolina in the Campaign of ijSo-Sj. ^ 2 Henry, 123-124. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION, 47 

Homesteads became objects of revengeful or 
avaricious attack, and families became refugees, 
and found shelter in mountains or in swamps. 
The patriots lived on scant food, snatched a 
precarious subsistence from what could be had 
from friends, or captured from enemies.' With- 
out succor from Congress or Colonies, Marion, 
Sumter, Horry, Pickens, and others, at the 
head of untrained and unpaid gentlemen, 
achieved deeds and successes which, in other 
lands, more careful of chronicles, and more 
habituated to record and preserve achieve- 
ments, would have been the theme of inspiration 
for romance, or verse, or history. Greg, the 
prejudiced English historian,'* says: ^' The 
South Carolinians possessed a class of gentle- 
men well qualified by open air life, by frequent 
journeys on horse-back, their love of field sport, 
their keen sense of honor and personal dignity, 
and above all by their daily habit of command, 
which belonged to their position as planters, 
personally directing the labor of a dozen, a 
score, or a hundred slaves, to organize, lead, 
and discipline the splendid raw material of 
soldiership found among the farmers, graziers, 
and back-woodsmen." 

It is unfortunate that the habits of life of the 
Southern people and their contempt for vain- 
glory, love of money and mercenary services, 
prevented any adequate preservation of the 

^ 2 Henry, 116. I Rives's Mad., 272-274. 
s I Vol., 228. 



48 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

materials of such a history. In consequence of 
this contemporary neglect to record and to save, 
these Southern States have suffered in failing 
to receive the bounties and pensions as well as 
the historical recognition properly due to them. /^ 
Col. Higginson, in the Centennial address before 
the Massachusetts Historical Society, said: 
" No set of new colonists, probabiy, ever re- 
corded their own history so promptly and con- 
tinuously as did the founders of New England. 
The leaders of the Plymouth and Salem colonies 
wrote from the very beginning ; each new 
colony was born writing as one might say — as 
if a baby were to raise its head from the cradle 
and demand pen and ink to put down his ex- 
pressions. They kept back nothing so far as 
they knew it. This from the earliest period ; 
and when we come to the storm and stress of 
the Revolution it is the same thing. Men came 
through it historians of themselves."' 

It might easily be shown, even with the scant 
memoranda almost providentially preserved, 
that the South, in expense and battles and 
soldiers, bore her full share in the struggle for 
independence. In Baltimore, the first cruisers 
were fitted out, which were the pioneers of the 
American navy, and Maryland furnished more 
than twenty thousand men to the Revolutionary 
army. In 1790, the white male population over 
sixteen years of age, in Pennsylvania and Vir- 
ginia, was about the same, the former being 
1 10,788, and the latter, 1 10,934, and yet, accord- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 



49 



ing to the official estimate presented to the 
first Congress by the Secretary of War, General 
Henry Knox of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania 
furnished 34,965 soldiers and Virginia 56,721. 
New Hampshire had a military population 
513 larger than South Carolina, and she con- 
tributed 14,906 soldiers, and South Carolina, 
31,131. The latter quota is nearly equal to that 
of Pennsylvania, which had triple the military 
population and twice the total population, free 
and slave. South Carolina outnumbered New 
York's troops 29,836, although New York had 
much more than double the military population, 
and 40 per cent, more of total population. Con- 
necticut and Massachusetts did more than any 
of the States, not Southern, and yet South Caro- 
lina sent to its armies 37 out of every 42 citizens 
capable of bearing arms ; Massachusetts sent 
32; Connecticut, 30; and New Hampshire, 18. 
At the North, nearly every man who served 
•was entered on the rolls, while, as General Knox 
says, *' in some years of the greatest exertion of 
the Southern States there are no returns what- 
ever of the militia." ' Generally, at the North 
the war assumed a regular character; at the 
South it was brought home to every fireside ; 
and there was scarcely a man who did not 
shoulder his musket, even though not regularly 
in the field. Again, while sending its troops 
freely to defend any part of the country, it 
fought, in very large degree, its own battles, 

' SttAm. State Papers, Military Affairs, i, 14, etc. 



50 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

and the losses sustained in supporting this home 
conflict were far heavier than any amount of 
taxation ever levied. .,^" Certain partisan leaders 
in Vermont kept up, on their part, a shrewd 
parleying, now with the British authorities for 
the purpose of conjuring the storm of war from 
their borders, and now with the Continental 
Congress for the purpose of coercing that hesi- 
tating body into a recognition of the territorial 
independence." ^ ''K Pennsylvania historian says : 
" Pennsylvania fought in the Revolution like a 
man with one arm tied behind his back." The 
Declaration of Independence ''was looked upon 
by many at the time as a party triumph " and 
dissidence of opinion — a civic feud — drove men 
of the highest character from the public service. 
John Adams called the triumph of the Revolu- 
tionary party a righteous overthrow of '' coward- 
ice and Toryism," and it was constantly alleged, 
" with much iteration of phrase," that " the 
proprietory gentlemen " were more solicitous 
to keep the scabbards of their swords unsoiled 
than to wield the swords in a battle for the 
rights of the Colonies.'^ According to General 
Knox's report, the North sent to the army loo 
men for every 227 of military age, as shown by 
the census of 1790, and the South 100 for every 
209. In 1848, one out of every 62 of the men 
of military age in 1790 in the North was a 
revolutionary pensioner, and one out of every 
no in the South/ Of these pensioners New 

* See The Nation, August, 1893. ^ Elliot's, Rebates,, 10. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 51 

England had 3146, more than there were in all 
the South, and New York two thirds as many, 
though she contributed not one seventh as many 
men to the war. These are authentic historical 
facts, and are not presented by way of recrimina- 
tion, but to establish equality and justice. If 
there were inequality of burdens, if the South 
made heavy sacrifices, they were cheerful free- 
will offerings on the altar of Liberty.^ " 

'While these things were occurring in the more 
stable settlements, there was, in the country on 
the Ohio and the Tennessee rivers, the most re- 
markable exhibition of self-government, indi- 
vidual prowess, and loyalty to liberty. In 
pushing West our borders, the South did apart 
that has not generally received proper record 
or commendation. Roosevelt, in his picturesque 
Winning of the JF^^/^abookof much laborious 
research, of contagious enthusiasm, of catholic 
patriotism, — has put together, in attractive 
form, with ability and literary skill, what the 
hardy pioneers of revolutionary days did, with 
incredible courage and privations, for the ex- 
pulsion of the Indians, for punishment of their 
atrocities, and for the discomfiture of the Brit- 
ish in their cruel alliance for political ends with 
the savage Indians.' The hardy adventurers 

' 2 Henry, 9, 69, 155. 10 Bancroft, 479. 

2 " The introduction of barbarians and savages into the con- 
tests of civilized nations is a measure pregnant with shame and 
mischief, which the interests of the moment may compel, but 
which is reprobated by the best principles of humanity and 
reason." 8 Gibbon's Rome, 58, 



52 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

supplied leaders and men/ and led their com- 
panions to battle and victory, as Jackson and 
Houston and Lamar did in later days. Roose- 
velt says : 

" Indeed, the Southwesterners not only won 
their soil for themselves, but they were the 
chief instruments in the original acquisition of 
the Northwest also. Had it not been for the 
conquest of the Illinois towns in 1779, we 
should probably never have had any Northwest 
to settle ; and the huge tract between the 
upper Mississippi and the Columbia, then called 
Upper Louisiana, fell into our hands, only be- 
cause the Kentuckians and Tennesseeans were 
resolutely bent on taking possession of New 
Orleans, either by bargain or by battle. All of 
our territory lying beyond the Alleghanies, north 
and south, was first won for us by the Southwest- 
erners fighting for their own land. The northern 
part was afterwards filled up by the thrifty, vig- 
orous men of the Northeast, whose sons became 
the real rulers as well as the preservers of the 
Union ; but these settlements of Northerners 
were rendered possible only by the deeds of 
the nation as a whole. They entered on land 
that the Southerners had won, and they were 
kept there by the strong arm of the Federal 
Government ; whereas the Southerners owed 
most of their victories only to themselves. 

*' The first comers around Marietta, did, 
it is true, share to a certain extent in the dan- 

^ 2 Henry, v., 25, 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 53 

gers of the existing Indian wars ; but their trials 
are not to be mentioned beside those endured 
by the early settlers of Tennessee and Ken- 
tucky, and whereas these latter themselves 
subdued and drove out their foes, the former 
took but an insignificant part in the contest by 
which the possession of their land was secured. 
Besides, the strongest and most numerous 
Indian tribes were in the Southwest." 
If Beginning in 1774, these border-men crossed 
the Alleghanies, defeated French, Spaniards, and 
the British wath their Indian alHes, made homes 
for their families in the primeval forests, en- 
larged the area of freedom, and opened the way 
for the establishment of organized liberty on 
this virgin continent. Romance contains noth- 
ing more thrilling than the exploits of^ these 
pioneer men and women ; and we do injustice 
while honoring the achievements of those en- 
gaged in more regular warfare against the Brit- 
ish and the Tories, not to keep in grateful 
remembrance the deeds of those who, amid 
severer hardships and dangers, were subdumg 
more active and dangerous foes. These back- 
woodsmen were ardent patriots, and deserve to 
be classed with their fathers and brothers on 
the Atlantic coast. 

In 1774 was fought the battle of the great 
Kanawha, bloody and stubborn, closely con- 
tested between the Indians and the back- 
woodsmen.^^ '^^This war kept the Korthwestern 
tribes quiet for the first two years of the Kevo- 



54 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

lutionary struggle, and rendered possible the 
settlement of Kentucky," and, therefore, the 
winning of the West. Lewis's army consisted 
of men from Botetourt and Fincastle; ^ but 
those counties then embraced all Southwest- 
ern Virginia, even extended to " the waters of 
the Mississippi." '/On their homeward march, 
after the victory, the officers held a notable 
meeting near the mouth of the Hockhocking. 
They had followed Lord Dunmore ; but they 
were Americans in full sympathy with the 
Continental Congress. Fearful lest their coun- 
trymen might not know that they were as one 
with them in the struggle which was looming 
up with ever increasing blackness, they passed 
resolutions professing devotion to their King 
and to the dignity of the British Empire,'^ but 
they added that this devotion would only last 
while the King deigned to rule over a free 
people, for their love for the liberty of America 
exceeded all other considerations and they 
would exert every power for its defence, not 
riotously but when regularly called forth by 
the voice of their countrymen.^ 
^ I, ^ The men of the West took little share in 
/ campaigning against the British and Hessians. 
/ In the exigencies of the unequal war they were 
i left to take care of themselves, and were fully 
occupied in " holding the wooded wilderness 
that stretched westward to the Mississippi," 

^ 2 Henry ^ 103. ^ i Henry, 204-205. 

2 I Winning of the West^ 238-240. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 55 

and in laying therein the foundations of many 
future commonwealths. Only trained woods- 
men could have occupied successfully the 
regions out of which so many States have been 
carved. Patrick Henry and Jefferson and 
Wythe encouraged Clark to whose tact, energy, 
courage, and executive ability in his momen- 
tous expedition of 1 778-1 779, we owe the 
acquisition of the West, and the defeat of the 
British and the Indians. The British com- 
mander records his mortification at having; to 
yield Fort Vincennes in 1779 " to a set of un- 
civilized Virginia woodsmen armed with rifles," 
and Roosevelt says had Clark '' in this most 
memorable of all the deeds done west of the 
Alleghanies in the Revolutionary War " been 
defeated, '' we would not only have lost the 
Illinois but in all probability Kentucky also." ' 
The British were never able subsequently to 
shake the hold of the Americans upon this sec- 
tion ; and the Indians became quiet until their 
hostilities were far less formidable. In the 
war of the Revolution, Great Britain sought to 
" stop the westward growth of the English race 
in America, and to keep the region beyond the 
Alleghanies as the region where only savages 
should dwell."' The arms used by savages 
agairist both organized foes and helpless non- 
combatants, were supplied from British arsen- 
als. Clark, in his campaign, in Illinois and the 
Northwest, and Boone in Kentucky, encoun- 

1 2 Wi7i7iing of the West, S4, S5, 90. *2 lb., 6. 



56 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

tered Indians officered and armed by the 
British/ ^^ Under provocation, the Western 
pioneers sometimes retaliated eye for eye, 
scalp for scalp, but to courage they joined open- 
handed hospitality, generous neighborhood, g 
rough common sense and the true American 
capacity for extemporizing government. In 
1772, on the head-waters of the Tennessee, was 
organized a government. A written constitu- 
tion was formed, *' the first ever adopted west 
of the mountains, or by a community composed 
of American born freemen. They were the 
first men of American birth to establish a free 
and independent commonwealth on the con- 
tinent." "^ For six years this government con. 
tinued in full vigor, and came to an end in 
1778, when North Carolina organized Washing- 
ton County, which included all of what is now 
Tennessee. Physical geography is a potent 
factor in national unity. In the war between 
the States, probably no one fact, apart from 
mere sentiment, was so controlling in the 
purpose and effort to prevent '' the wayward 
sisters from departing in peace," as the need of 
the Mississippi River for a highway of com- 
merce, and the danger of letting its mouth 
remain in the possession of a foreign power. 
The Mississippi River and valley are ours 
largely by reason of the energy, the courage, 
the patriotism of the winners of the West, the 

^ 2 Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe ^ 421. 
^ I Winning of the West, 183-186. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 



57 



fearless, adventurous, unconquerable pioneers 
from Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and 
Tennessee. The constant wars carried on by 
them in their own independent way, for the 
protection of houses and famiUes, were at 
their own expense, as they served without pay, 
and furnished their own rifles and ammunition, 
their own food and clothing. As Nehemiah's 
men builded with swords girded by their side, 
so these watchful men tilled their ground and 
felled the forests with their trusty rifles ever 
within ready reach. Roosevelt ascribes to the 
backwoodsmen the credit of the King's Moun- 
tain battle, and says the victory was of far- 
reaching importance, ranking among the decis- 
ive battles of the Revolution, cheering the 
patriots throughout the Union, giving a de- 
cisive blow to loyalists and causing Cornwallis 
to retreat from North Carolina. ^ 

^ 1 lb., 238-240. 2 lb., chap. IX. 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Continental Congresses, which began 
their sessions at Philadelphia on the 5th of 
September, 1774, '^ under the severe pressure of 
a common fear and an immediate necessity of 
action," lasted for nine years, until the valid 
ratification of the Articles of Confederation. It 
is necessary to inquire into the exact relation of 
these Congresses to the States, because much 
misapprehension exists on the subject ; and pub- 
lic men and historians have built theories and 
based arguments on palpable and demonstra- 
ble fallacies. " Nearly all the fallacies in the 
literature of our constitutional history may be 
traced, wholly or in part, to assumptions in 
answer to this question. Our constitutional 
history cannot be written with authority until 
the question of fact here raised is settled by 
appeal to the detailed evidence on record.'* This 
evidence and the facts of American history have 
been obscured or perverted to sustain certain po- 
litical theories, dogmas, or measures. Bold as- 
sumptions and perversions on this point have 
violently and suddenly jerked the Colonies 
".from atomic colonial independence" into a blen- 
ded organic nationality, from alliance for certain 
purposes into paramount indivisible sovereignty 

58 



THE SOUTHERN STATES. 59 

as one people. The text-book for this study is 
''the authentic records of the public acts" of 
this period with occasional side lights from 
private sources. What Congress represented 
during the inchoate period of union, prior to 
the spring of 1781, must be decided by the 
action of the Colonies, or parties,who accredited 
the delegates. ' These Congresses were extra 
legal and irregular in their composition, and in 
no sense proceeded from sovereign power. 
They brought common ideas and purposes into 
expression and co-operation. They were "for the 
development of a common consciousness " so 
that there might be thereafter, if occasion de- 
manded and the Colonies approved, a common 
government with defined and larger powers. In 
any official action or assertion there is not the 
trace of a power of intercolonial control. The 
delegates never once claimed any independence 
of their constituencies, the colonial assemblies 
which they represented. The credentials of 
the members determine infallibly whom and 
what they represented. The popular branch of 

' No one has labored more creditably and successfully in 
this department of historical civics than Dr. Albion W. Small. 
His Beginnings of American N'ationality ^ in the Johns-Hop- 
kins Historical and Political Science series, unfortunately 
incomplete, is a model of historic composition, constructed in 
a true historic spirit, letting naked facts, diligently searched 
and collated, speak themselves, without gloss of prejudice or 
comment of blind partisanship. The continuance of his re- 
searches is a historical and political need. Fiske has partially 
constructed his histories on the same facts. 



6o THE SOUTHERN STATES 

the Legislature in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 
and Pennsylvania, appointed deputies. In 
Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland and Vir- 
ginia, committees chose the delegates. In North 
Carolina and South Carolina, general meetings 
appointed and instructed delegates. The dele- 
gates from New York were chosen by wards in 
the cities and by counties in the province/ This 
irregularity of appointment shows the character 
of the body and its impotency to commit or 
bind the constituency. The instructions, pro- 
ceeding from different sources, show that it was 
a deliberative and advisory body and nothing 
more ; that it was appointed to consult and 
to adopt measures to obtain redress of griev- 
ances, and restore the union and harmony which 
existed between Great Britain and the Colonies. 
There was nothing administrative or govern- 
mental about the organization of the body, and 
in determining questions each province or 
colony had but one vote. " The most import- 
ant business of the Congress was the prepara- 
tion of the documents, which were intended not 
merely as weapons of peaceful warfare, but as 
incitement and equipment in case resort should 
be necessary to desperate means." ^ These 
demonstrate that the Congress was aware of its 
own authority, '' as a committee of observation 
and recommendation without legislative or ex- 
ecutive powers of any sort." The " Declaration 

^ Small, 17 ; Upshur, 20. 
' Small, 27. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 6 1 

of Rights and Grievances " declared " Our cause 
is just, our union is perfect," but '' union " did 
not, could not, imply a notion of fixed organic 
connection/ To use the term union with its 
present historical associations is an inexcusable 
historical solecism. '' The union of the time 
was the common purpose to postpone all minor 
interests in prosecuting the determination " to 
employ all the powers they possessed for the 
preservation of their liberties. The fourth 
clause declared that the colonies are " entitled 
to a free and exclusive power of legislation in 
their several provincial legislatures, where the 
rights of representation can alone be preserved, 
in all cases of taxation and hiternal policy^ sub- 
ject only to the negative of their sovereign, in 
such manner as has been heretofore used and 
accustomed." The Act of Association, in- 
tended to discontinue the foreign slave trade, 
importations from England, consumption of 
East India tea, etc., was recommended to the 
Colonies for such action as would carry it into 
execution. The Congress made an address to 
friends and fellow-subjects of Great Britain, to 
the King, inhabitants of Quebec, and a memor- 
ial to the twelve colonies. Georgia, not being 
represented, is not included. Dr. Small makes 
an epitome of the proceedings of the Congress, 
"utterly devoid of coercive power," and argues : 
I. " T\vQ pozvers of the Congress, as defined by 
the votes of the bodies granting the credentials, 

* Small, 40. 



62 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

are those of a committee for consultation and 
advice. 2. The acts of the Congress, which 
we are now analyzing, are conformable to these 
instructions, hence : 3. The authority of a 
govermnent cannot be predicated of this com- 
mittee." ' Further he adds, in reply to Froth- 
ingham's, Adams's, and Hildreth's theorizing 
after the event, that the terms, union, law, na- 
tion, sovereign, '' composed into political creeds, 
have been the means of exalting arbitrary and 
unnatural hypotheses to the rank of fundamen- 
tal truths." "There is not a trace of any 
popular or ofificial act of the time that can be 
rationally expounded as evidence of a claim, on 
the part of a Continental Congress, to the power 
of intercolonial control." " By creating this 
Continental Committee the widely separated 
colonies became simply colonies testing the 
actuality and potency of their common ideas. 
They were no more a nation than twelve neigh- 
bors, meeting for a discussion of a possible ven- 
ture, would be a partnership." 

Before adjourning, the Congress recommended 
the colonies to choose deputies to attend an- 
other Congress, to be held the succeeding year, 
in Philadelphia. What occurred in the appoint- 
ments and credentials of 1774, was substantially 
repeated in the choice of " members of another 
Continental Committee," known as the Congress 
of 1775. It is needless to repeat reference and 
statement and to make nearly the identical ex- 

^ Small, 2g. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 63 

tracts. In some cases there was a little enlarge- 
ment, as the colonies realized that revolution 
was an accomplished fact, but there was no del- 
egation of power sufficient to make obligatory 
on the States the decisions of a Congress. 
There was no indication of a purpose or desire 
to place the co-operating commonwealths under 
central control, at the sacrifice of the twelve 
" self-determining and self-governing communi- 
ties." An examination of the acts of the body 
will show a substantial agreement with the cre- 
dentials, and make it indubitably clear that the 
second Congress had no powers above those 
authorized in the set of instructions. It is not 
denied that the Congress, in the absence of any 
formally constituted government, took a large 
view of its powers, enjoyed a prestige which it 
subsequently lost, initiated actions of various 
kinds, but it exerted no sovereign power in the 
premises, and based validity of action on a cer- 
tainty of adoption by the colonies. 

Powers exercised for the whole country by 
the Congress were not derived '' from the will 
and force of all the States, existing as one integ- 
ral sovereignty." That is a dogma invented 
for sustaining party theories and governmental 
assumptions of power, and does not rest on his- 
torical fact. Even when Congress, ex necessi- 
tate, and by connivance or consent of the 
Colonies, exercised, as a common medium, a 
quasi-international sovereignty, the Colonies 
were independent in their relations to one 



64 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

another, and had their laws and governments 
as local units/ They had unity of sympathy 
and action, and these thirteen organized units 
strove long and hard before they had a common 
government with full powers of a Federal gov- 
ernment. The feeling of resistance, the spirit 
of revolution, had become strong enough to 
support the deputies in assuming some powers, 
" not nominated in the bond," but there was 
no claim of superiority to the colonial assem- 
blies, and everything was based on the belief 
that the people of the separate colonies acqui- 
esced in the exercise of every essential power 
of government. The Congress presupposed 
concurrence in action taken by '' the only pos- 
sible medium of co-ordination and combination." 
" It was a Congress of deputies, not of legisla- 
tors. It performed no single act which did not 
derive viability from sustentation by the local 
powers. Its history forms a record of localism 
rising superior to itself to meet the demand of a 
crisis," a localism " displaying its maximum pos- 
sibilities for resistance and aggression." ^ " It 
was a body which wielded no technical legal 
authority ; it was but a group of committees, 
assembled for the purpose of advising with each 
other regarding the public weal." ^ The Con- 

' The ownership of all ungranted lands within the limits of 
the thirteen States passed from the Crown, not to the Con- 
federacy, but to the several State governments. 

2 Small, 72, 73, 77. 

^ I Fiske's Amer. Rev., 132, 243. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 65 

gress, as the organ of communication, in its 
offensive and defensive measures, and measures 
of general utility, in its direction of military 
affairs and creation and administration of 
revenue, became a quasi-permanent institution, 
until it lapsed into the Articles of Confedera- 
tion. It really was only an occasional body, 
renewable from time to time. It was called 
"Continental" to distinguish it from the ''Pro- 
vincial Congresses," held in several of the 
colonies. It had no similarity in power or func- 
tion to our present Congress. The authority 
arose from the acquiescence of the Colonies or 
States, which relied on the sagacity, the superior 
information, the strategic wisdom, the more 
comprehensive view, of the committee of safety 
which alone could express the general will. It 
was not strictly a legislative body. It advised 
and recommended and appealed and urged and 
sometimes assumed. There were no distinct 
executive officers, and it could not execute its 
own resolves as to most purposes, except by the 
aid and intervention of the colonial authorities. 
" Its executive operations were vicarious, not 
functional." ^ When money or troops were 
needed, the States were urged and begged. 
It borrowed money and issued promises to pay. 
It declared independence of Great Britain ; it 
contracted an alliance with France ; it issued 
letters of marque and reprisal ; it built a navy ; 
it organized an army ; appointed a commander- 

1 Small, 76. 
5 



66 THE SOUTHERN STATES. 

in-chief to direct its operations, and was the 
chief agency in carrying through successfully 
the long struggle for separation and freedom.' 
All this was done without exclusive powers, and 
with no pretence of interfering with, or abridg- 
ing, the absolute sovereignty and independence 
of the States. 

* Fiske's Civ. Gov.^ 204, 208. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Intercourse between the provincial assem- 
blies and the Continental Congress, and those 
exigencies of war, which strain granted and 
call" out inferential or implied powers m gov- 
ernments which have carefully-defined con- 
stitutions, brought to light the limitations o 
the Congress, and the need for prompter and 
more effective action than could be secured by 
tedious and uncertain appeals to the constitu- 
ent sovereign bodies. This dependence of the 
central agency on the action of the States for 
the discharge of appropriate and urgent duties 
made it necessary to adopt a more intimate 
plan of union and to secure larger powers. This 
was formally proposed in Congress m June, 
1776 as greater authority was necessary to 
good government, and to the success of the 
common cause. A committee, appomted to 
draw up the " articles of confederation and per- 
petual union between the States, urged a 
stronger league in order " to confound our 
oreign enemies, support public credit, restore 
the value of our money, enable us to maintain 
our fleets and armies, and add weight and re- 
spect to our counsels at home and our treaties 
abroad." ' In November, 1777, the articles were 

1 I Secret Journals of Congress, 362, 365. 
67 



68 THE SOUTHERN- STATES 

adopted by Congress. Virginia was the first of 
the States to respond to this appeal, and by a 
unanimous vote. As early as 1778, ten States 
confirmed the articles, another assented in 1779, 
and another in 1780. Maryland, the most re- 
luctant, finally acceded, and thus made them 
obligatory on 1st of March, 1781. Nothing 
less than the ratification of them by all of the 
States, each acting separately for itself, was suf- 
ficient to give them any binding force or 
authority. Various causes as to methods of 
voting, of apportioning troops and taxes, and of 
regulating foreign trade, delayed the action of 
States, ever jealous of their separate and 
sovereign rights, but Maryland stood out most 
stubbornly in opposition to the compact and re- 
fused her necessary ratification unless the States, 
laying claim to the Northwestern lands, and 
especially Virginia, should surrender their 
claims to the confederation. The landed States 
were slow to surrender their territorial posses- 
sions. The landless States insisted that the 
unoccupied territory should be ceded and par- 
celled out into '' free, convenient, and indepen- 
dent governments." In 1780, Congress implored 
the more fortunate to heed the clamors of the 
less richly endowed sisters, and adopted a reso- 
lution which is quoted as of much value in the 
controversies as to the rights of the States : 

*' Resolved, That the unappropriated lands 
that may be ceded or relinquished to the 
United States by any particular State, pursuant 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 69 

to the recommendation of Congress of the sixth 
day of September last, shall be disposed of for 
the common benefit of the United States, and 
be settled and formed into distinct repubhcan 
States, which shall become members of the 
Federal Union, and have the same rights of 
sovereignty, freedom, and independence as the 
other States." . . . (Journals of Congress, 
iii., 535, 282.) 

As has been stated, Virginia was the princi- 
pal claimant, and, as a matter of legal right, her 
claim was indubitably valid. Bancroft says her 
right to extend to the Mississippi was unques- 
tioned. While asserting her claim against those 
who wantonly assailed it, she never sought to 
use it in any selfish spirit, but, with her usual 
queenly generosity and magnanimity, offered 
to admit the other States to a free participation 
as a fund to provide bounties to their soldiers 
on the continental establishment equally with 
her own. On 2d January, 1 781, the General 
Assembly of Virginia proposed to surrender to 
Congress, for the common benefit of the whole, 
that immense territory claimed and possessed by 
her northwest of the Ohio and extending thence 
to the lakes and the Mississippi. Certain con- 
ditions, subsequently modified or withdrawn, 
delayed an acceptance by Congress until March 
I, 1784.' Maryland, however, accepted the of- 
fer, as in good faith, and withdrew her opposi- 

^ Hening's Statutes, 564-7 ; i Rives's Mad., 253-65 ; 6 Am. 
Archives (fourth series) ; 2 Henry, ch. xx\ai. 



70 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

tion to the articles of confederation. Fiske 
says of the magnanimity of the desired surren- 
der : " New York, after all, surrendered only a 
shadowy claim, whereas Virginia gave up a 
magnificent and princely territory, of which she 
was actually in possession. She might have 
held back and made endless trouble, just as, at 
the beginning of the Revolution, she might 
have refused to make common cause with Mas- 
sachusetts ; but in both instances her leading 
statesmen showed a far-sighted wisdom and a 
breadth of patriotism for which no words of 
praise can be too strong." Senator Hoar says : 
" The cession of Virginia was the most marked 
instance of a large and generous self denial." 
In 1787, South Carolina ceded her western 
lands to Congress. Connecticut in her cession 
held the western reserve until 1800. The 
States, in their cessions, made their own condi- 
tions as fully as if they were foreign govern- 
ments. 

Under the Articles of Confederation each 
State was an integer of equal dignity and power. 
The States had no purpose to abandon their 
sovereignty. To that they clung as an object 
of dearest desire, as the right never to be yielded, 
and they stipulated in strong, unmistakable lan- 
guage, that '' each State retains its sovereignty, 
freedom, and independence, and every power, 
jurisdiction, and right which is not by this con- 
federation expressly delegated to the United 
States, in Congress assembled." This constitu- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION, 7 1 

tion (it was frequently, at that period, spoken 
of as such) did not mend matters/ The Con- 
gress was still without power to raise money by 
taxation, for that most fundamental of all the 
attributes of sovereignty was not given to it. 
Requisitions for men and money were still de- 
pendent for their execution upon the action of 
the States respectively. A successful war and 
independence secured left the confederacy with 
'' an empty treasury, an impaired credit, a 
country drained of its wealth and impoverished 
by the exhaustive struggle." The limited and 
imperfect powers conferred by the Articles af- 
forded no remedy for evils. Defects were not 
remediable, for practically there was no power 
except by the unanimous consent of the thir- 
teen States. The impotence of treaties, com- 
mercial depression, financial disaster, and social 
disorders, caused many suggestions for enlarg- 
ing powers and for a more efficient inter-state 
organization. 

Investing Congress with larger powers, or a 
collapse of the Government, seemed to be the 
only alternative left. Congress, while confess- 
ing its helplessness, was unwilling to surrender 
its functions. In 1785, 28th of March, Com- 
missioners from Maryland and Virginia met at 
Mount Vernon to establish commercial rela- 
tions between those States for the commerce of 
the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay, and to devise 
measures for uniting the waters of the James 

^ Fiske's Crit. Fer., 146. 



72 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

and the Potomac with those of the Ohio. The 
report of the joint Commission met with oppo- 
sition in the Legislature of Virginia and was 
postponed. Maryland, however, in assenting to 
the compact agreed upon by the Commission, 
proposed that committees from all the States 
should meet in convention to regulate American 
commerce. At this critical juncture, the Legis- 
lature of Virginia, on 2ist January, 1786, ap- 
pointed a commission, with Madison at its head, 
to meet other Commissions at Annapolis, for 
the purpose of digesting and reporting the 
requisite augmentation of the powers of Con- 
gress over trade.^ Nine States met and urged the 
necessity of extending the revision of the fed- 
eral system to all its defects, and recommended 
a convention from all the States to devise such 
further provisions as might appear to be neces- 
sary to render the constitution of the federal 
government adequate to the exigencies of the 
Union. A federal convention became the last 
hope, the only feasible expedient, and the first 
idea of a national legislature, judiciary and ex- 
ecutive, is found in a letter of Madison to Gov- 
ernor Randolph. Virginia, without a dissenting 
voice, early in November, 1786, gave her sanc- 
tion to the recommendation for a convention, 
and appointed Washington, Madison, Ran- 
dolph, and Mason as her deputies, stipula- 
ting, however, that the new federal consti- 
tution, after it should be agreed to by Con- 
^ 2 Rives, 60. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION, 73 

gress, was to be established, not by the 
legislatures of the States, but by the States 
themselves, thus opening the way for special 
conventions of the several States/ Urgency 
of action was increased by rebeUions in Massa- 
chusetts, riots in some States, threats of with- 
drawal from the loose confederation, and the 
hostile attitude of neighboring commonwealths. 
Connecticut levied duties on imports from Mas- 
sachusetts. Pennsylvania discriminated against 
Delaware and New Jersey. Connecticut and 
Pennsylvania quarrelled over the valley of Wy- 
oming ; New York and New Hampshire over 
Green Mountains. '' The history of New York 
was a shameful story of greedy monopoly and 
sectional hate."^ Despite all the pressure, it 
was found impossible to get a full representa- 
tion in Philadelphia until May, 1787. Massa- 
chusetts had been as obstinate in her assertion 
of local independence, and her unwillingness to 
strengthen the hands of Congress, as New York 
and Rhode Island. When Virginia appointed 
delegates, and put Washington at their head, 
the popularity of the movement for a more 
perfect union grew rapidly, as trust in him 
quieted many apprehensions. Mr. Jefferson, 
February 8, 1786, wrote to Mr. Madison : " The 
politics of Europe render it indispensably neces- 
sary that with respect to everything external 
we be one nation only, firmly hooped together. 
Interior government is what each State should 

^ I Ban., 272. ^ Jb,, 145, 146. 



74 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

keep to itself." In a later letter, December i6, 
1786, he says tersely and clearly : " To make us 
one nation as to foreign concerns and keep us 
distinct in domestic ones, gives the outline of 
the proper division of power between the gen- 
eral and particular Governments." ^ Rhode 
Island alone refused to become a party to the 
proceedings. The convention of States did not 
confine its attention to a revision of the Articles 
of Confederation, as had been contemplated by 
the resolution of Congress, but formulated an 
entirely new instrument, made up of a series of 
compromises, and creating a government of an 
entirely different nature from that then exist- 
ing. After four months of work, with closed 
doors, the Convention, '' all the States concur- 
ring," says Madison's memorandum, was able 
to present to the States for their separate rati- 
fication the Federal Constitution. It was 
Rufus King, an advocate of a strong national 
government, who moved to add, " between the 
States so ratifying the same." It is not possible, 
nor desirable, to parcel out merit for this grand 
structure, but no honest person can claim that 
Washington, Madison, Mason, Martin, Rut- 
ledge, the Pinckneys, Wythe, Carroll, and Ran- 
dolph, were surpassed in patriotism, influence 
and wisdom by their associates. 

Much has been written and spoken as to the 
credit due to men and to States for the adop- 
tion of the Constitution, and to one or two men 
1 I Ban., 277. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 75 

of ability and patriotism has been ascribed the 
chief honor, ignoring completely the testimony 
that the record of the debates bears on the 
point. On the day appointed for opening the 
federal convention, the States being insuffi- 
ciently represented, the deputies adjourned from 
day to day, awaiting the arrival of colleagues. 
The delay gave opportunity for conference. 
The Virginia delegation, as their State had 
initiated the convention, utilized the time in 
securing '' a proper correspondence of senti- 
ments " and in forming a plan for the considera- 
tion of the body when it should be organized. 
Madison undertook the task of preparing the 
outlines of a Constitution, as a basis for delibera- 
tion. For this he was eminently fitted, as he 
had made a thorough study of colonial. State, 
and foreign institutions, and had mastered the 
underlying and impeUing causes of the Revolu- 
tion. A plan for a government, submitted by 
him, after much consultation was amended 
until it was agreed to by all, and to Randolph 
was entrusted the office of bringing forward the 
Virginia plan, which he did on the 29th of May. 
A scheme, very similar in form and fulness of 
detail to the instrument finally adopted, was 
proposed on the same day by Charles Pinckney 
of South Carohna. Judge Patterson of New 
Jersey submitted a plan on the 15th of June. 
On the i8th of June, Hamilton proposed an 
outline, but it was so radically centraHzing that 
it was neither referred nor voted on, the votes 



"jd THE SOUTHERN STATES 

in the Convention being taken chiefly on the 
rival plans of Randolph and Patterson. When 
the instrument was presented from the Com- 
mittee of Detail, it bore the impress of John 
Rutledge of South Carolina. ^ The Convention 
in Committee, after an exhaustive analysis by 
Madison of competing schemes, reported the 
plan of Virginia of the 19th of June, 1787. 
After much debate and most earnest considera- 
tion, and being cast into its present form by the 
pen and mind of Morris, the unanimous consent 
of all the eleven States present was recorded in 
favor of the new scheme of Government. 

What was foreshadowed in the preparation of 
a thoroughly comprehensive scheme of consti- 
tutional government for the Union was followed 
up by the energetic and ceaseless action of 
Madison, whereyer he found opportunity for 
using tongue or pen. In the federal conven- 
tion his wisdom and patriotism and sagacity are 
to be seen on every page of the records. In 
the convention in Virginia to ratify, the defence 
of the instrument rested mainly on him, and he, 
'^ the chief author of the constitution," as Ban- 
croft calls him,'* formed with Hamilton and Jay, 
the triumvirate, which, by the papers called 
The Federalist^ prepared the States for accept- 
ing the determinations of the convention. 

^ See address of John Randolph Tucker before Yale Law 
School, on " History of Convention of 1787 and its Work," 
pp. 25-47. 

*3 Ban., 357« 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. J J 

The Constitution was ratified by the States 
in conventions, not by Legislatures, at various 
dates from November 6, 1787, to 29th of May, 
1790. The ratification was on the part of each 
a separate and distinct act, as no one thought 
of submitting the new Constitution to the body 
of the people, to be voted upon collectively as 
the people of a nation. The union of the States 
was to have as a solid foundation the will of 
the sovereign peoples and not the caprice of 
ephemeral legislatures. Pursuant to the declara- 
tion of the individual independence and sover- 
eignty of the colonies, the separate States had 
proceeded, each for itself, each in its own time 
and way, to form and adopt separate constitu- 
tions of government, separate State organiza- 
tions, separate State governments, and now 
determined to enter the more perfect union by 
their own separate, individual action. The 
ratification of one State, or of nine States, the 
required number antecedent to an organization, 
did not, most remotely, bind or civilly affect 
the individual action of the remainder. In fact, 
the Constitution went into effect, became opera- 
tive as a government, in 1789, between the 
States ratifying, several months before North 
Carolina on the 21st of November, joined the 
Federal Union, while Rhode Island Hngered in 
her accession until 29th of May, 1790, and then, 
in terms, reserved the right to withdraw, when- 
ever her interest demanded it. Nobody pre- 
tended to any right of coercion, or of inter- 



78 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

ference with the separate sovereignty. The 
particularistic origin of the Congress, and par- 
ticular ratification of the Constitution, are con- 
clusive that the Union was created by the States. 
The consideration of the Constitution by the 
Conventions of the several States drew together, 
in council and action, the ablest men of the 
country. The debates were spirited and strong. 
Differences of opinion, which had been devel- 
oped in the Federal Convention of 1787, be- 
came more marked and more distinctly defined, 
and principles, which became the basis of 
organization of our first political parties, were 
formulated and enforced. The proceedings of 
the Convention in Virginia in 1788 have been 
presented with fulness and ability by Hugh 
Blair Grigsby, and the inquiring reader is re- 
ferred to that admirable discussion. Virginia 
had favored the Articles of Confederation. For 
years their amendment had engaged public 
attention. Virginia, by formal resolution of 
her Assembly, had invited the meeting of the 
States, which became the convention of 1787. 
Many thought that an amendment of the sys- 
tem of government would be amply sufficient 
to secure the ends of its creation. The substi- 
tution of a different scheme of government, the 
entire destruction of the Articles which solemnly 
declared the Union to be perpetual, was not 
what many contemplated or desired when the 
delegates were chosen. Strong men criticised 
the inchoate constitution as endangering the 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 79 

autonomy of the States, centralizing power in 
the national head, and investing the new gov- 
ernment with the purse and sword/ The pre- 
dictions of Patrick Henry, in the Virginia 
Conventions of 1788, as to the workings of 
the proposed Federal Constitution, shoAV the 
remarkable prevision and sagacity of this friend 
of liberty. He considered that the real checks 
to the Federal Government must be the State 
Governments, and these were weakened to in- 
efficiency. Secession would be impracticable. 
The Federal Government, being supreme, its 
taxation would be more potent than that of 
the State, and through its exercise the people 
and the State would be oppressed. No security 
existed against the profligate use of public 
money, except the honesty of rulers, which was 
a poor dependence. The interests of the North- 
ern and Southern States were different; and 
the Federal Government subjects everything to 
Northern aggrandizement. Control of Congress 
over manner of holding elections will prove 
dangerous. Rich men will carry elections and 
make an aristocracy of wealth. Two judiciaries 
and legislatures will interfere, and those of the 
States will be subverted. Congress will not be 
confined to enumerated powers and will abuse 
the implied, and liberate slaves. The Federal 
Judiciary, by absorbing jurisdiction, will be 
dangerous to the liberties of the country. 

^ ^YX^o'Cs Debates, 47, 51, 57, 60, 14S, 166, 322, 327, jj/. 
539. 579, 589- 



80 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

An obstacle to the ratification of the Consti- 
tution by the Southern States grew out of the 
apprehensions and sectional feeling excited by 
the proposition to surrender the right to navi- 
gate the lower Mississippi in exchange for a 
favorable commercial treaty with Spain. The 
claim of Spain to the control of the navigation 
of the river below the Yazoo was pressed by 
the Spanish Minister persistently and some- 
what insultingly. Jay, yielding at last to his 
inexorable demand, advised Congress to con- 
sent to the closing for twenty-five years. 
Northern statesmen '' thought more of our 
right to the North Atlantic fisheries than of 
our ownership of the Mississippi valley." ^ The 
readiness of *' the New England people to bar- 
ter away the vital interests of a remote part of 
the country " elicited an outburst of wrath. 
This disposition of a majority in Congress, in 
1786, to surrender the right to navigation, 
awakened a fear that any right or benefit 
would be sacrificed to build up commerce, 
and the South and Southwest were thrown into 
turbulent excitement. Indignation meetings 
were held in Kentucky. The Legislature of 
Virginia uttered an indignant protest. Madi- 
son expressed his fear that unless the project 
of Congress could be reversed there was little 
hope of carrying the State into the Federal 
system. Jefferson said it was a clear sacrifice 
of the Western to the maritime States. Gor- 

' I Winning of the West, 22. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 8 1 

ham, of Massachusetts, openly avowed in 1787 
that he wished to see the Mississippi shut for 
the advantage of the Atlantic States. North 
Carolina declined ratification, in part because 
of misgivings on this subject. Grayson de- 
clared in the Virginia convention that it was a 
contest for empire, for dominion. The Con- 
gress in 1788 revoked its action and arrested 
the proceedings in pursuance of the negotia- 
tions which Jay had been authorized to under- 
take.^ Virmnia announced in her ratification 
that the powers granted in the Constitution 
might be re-assumed whenever the same 
should be perverted to the injury or oppres- 
sion of the people and shielded the rights of 
the States by the assertion that every power 
not granted by the Constitution remain for the 
people of the United States and at their will.^ 
New York declared in her ratification that the 
powers of government might be resumed by 
the people whenever it should become neces- 
sary to their happiness, and that every power, 
jurisdiction and right that was not delegated 
to the Congress remained to the several States, 
or the respective State governments. Rhode 
Island, in postponing her acceptance of the 
Constitution and becoming a State of the 
Union, was mainly governed, said Justice 
Miller, in his address on the Centennial of the 

1 Fiske's Crit. Period, 210, 2ii, 335. 2 Henry, ch. 
xxvii. 

2 Elliot, 656. 

6 



K 



82 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

Constitution, by the consideration that her 
superior advantages of location, and the pos- 
session of what was supposed to be the best 
harbor on the Alantic coast, should not be sub- 
jected to the control of a Congress which was 
expressly authorized to regulate commerce with 
foreign nations and among the several States. 
She accompanied her tardy ratification by de- 
claring that the powers of government might 
be resumed by the people whenever it should 
become necessary to their happiness. Massa- 
chusetts and New Hampshire, " to remove the 
fear and quiet the apprehension of many good 
people," proposed an amendment that the 
powers not expressly delegated by the Consti- 
tution were reserved to the several States to be 
by them exercised. 

In the throes of the war, when the land was 
overrun by powerful foes, the States looked 
with suspicion and jealousy upon a Congress 
having power over taxation. They, therefore, 
when such exigencies had partially ceased, 
were most reluctant to surrender so far their 
exclusive sovereignty as to concede the right 
to regulate commerce and trade, which involved 
the destruction of direct trade with foreign 
nations, and the right to control industry, 
direct labor, and wield capital at will. Em- 
powering Congress to regulate commerce by a 
simple majority of votes was such an absolute 
transfer of the whole subject that Mason and 
Randolph, of Virginia, refused to sign the 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 83 

Constitution, as they wanted a two thirds vote 
for the protection of their State. 

This surrender of the regulation of commerce 
was coupled with the transfer of legislation to 
possible coalitions, so that the rights hitherto 
enjoyed were to be thereafter at the courtesy 
or sense of justice of the stronger. The net 
amount of money received into the treasury of 
Virginia from customs, during the three quar- 
ters of the year ending 31st May, 1788, was 
sixty thousand pounds sterling. The imports 
and exports of the State for 1788 must have' 
reached over $30,000,000 ; ships of every nation 
waved their flags in Norfolk and Portsmouth. 
The period between the peace of 1783, and the 
adoption of the Federal Constitution in 1788 
was the most prosperous in the history of the 
State, for of the two centuries and a half this^ 
was a time when she enjoyed the benefits of a 
trade regulated by her own authority, unre- 
stricted and untaxed. " The increased produc- 
tion of agriculture, the immense quantities of 
lumber which employed a heavy tonnage, the 
vast commerce which filled our ports and rivers, 
and which was growing with every year, could 
hardly fail to attract observation. The impos- 
ing picture of a single seaport of Virginia, 
which had in the space of four years risen from 
ashes to a prominence which it had not attained 
during a century and a half of colonial rule, 
was a living witness of developed wealth, of 

1 Grigsby, 9, II. '^ i Ban., 150. 



84 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

successful enterprise and of good government, 
and afforded a cheerful omen of the future. 
From 1688 to 1776 the Government of Virginia 
was mainly conducted for the benefit of the 
people. She enjoyed a steady series of pros- 
perity for the last eighty-five years of her 
colonial existence, increasing in strength and 
resources." * 

In the ten years before the revolutionary 
troubles, 1760-9, the Southern colonies, with a 
population of 1,200,000, exported produce to 
the value of $42,297,705, while the exports of 
New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, 
with a population of 1,300,000, were only 
$9,356,035, or less than one fourth. In the 
same decade Carolina and Georgia exported 
twice as much in value as all New England, 
New York, and Pennsylvania. For the half 
century preceding her co-operation with her 
sister colonies, South Carolina had been pros- 
perous, her exports being lumber, pottery, rice, 
indigo, and naval stores. In one hundred and 
eight years of colonial life, population had in- 
creased from a handful to 248,139. When 
Georgia, in 1775, instructed her delegates to the 
Congress to concur in any measures " which 
they might think calculated for the common 
good," she was in a most enviable state of pros- 
perity. In 1763 her exports amounted to 
^27,031 sterling, and in 1773 to ;^I2I, 677 ster- 
ling. Virginia and Maryland exported five 

I Grigsby, 15, 16. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 85 

times as much as New England, eight times as 
much as New York, and over thirteen and a 
half times as much as Pennsylvania. At the 
beginning of the government Norfolk had a 
greater trade than New York, and for the first 
quarter of a century the South took the lead of 
the North in commerce. According to an assess- 
ment for direct taxes in 1799, the property held 
by the North and the South was alm.ost exactly 
the same in amount, being about $400,000,000 
in value each. A large extent of coast line 
improves climate and increases facilities for 
commerce. The Coast-survey in 1848-9 gives 
the coast line of the Southern States on Atlan- 
tic and Gulf as 6033 miles, while the Northern 
States have only 3275. The compact shape of 
the South makes this line of navigation avail- 
able to a large portion of the original Thirteen. 
From 1 79 1 to 1802 inclusive, the exports from 
Massachusetts were $98,770,000; from Connec- 
ticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, 
and New Jersey, $30,926,000 ; from Maryland, 
$101,026,000; South Carolina, $83,631,000; and 
Virginia, $42,833,000. Five Southern States 
exported $256,708,300; five Eastern States, 
$129,205,000, a large portion of which consisted 
of productions of the Southern States, first 
transported to Boston and other ports coast- 
wise. From 1 791 to 181 3 inclusive, five Eastern 
States exported of foreign and domestic articles, 
including an immense amount of Southern pro- 
ductions, only about $299,000,000. Southern 



86 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

States, in same period,, including Orleans, ex- 
ported $509,000,000/ 

The diminution in prosperity, the retrogres- 
sion, the relative decline of the South, are easily 
accounted for. The adjustment of taxation, 
the bounties to navigation and fishing, govern- 
ment partnership with favored interests, sec- 
tional discriminative disbursements, the entire 
fiscal action of the Federal government, have 
concentrated favors on one section to the dis- 
paragement of the other. New York City is 
the financial centre, the Threadneedle street, of 
the United States. The United States is an 
enormous money-dealer, and its payments, ex- 
changes, monetary transactions, are largely 
made in New York. The theory of the Inde- 
pendent Treasury system was that the Govern- 
ment had little to do, in a financial way^ except 
to collect its revenues and pay its legitimate 
expenses. Now, the Government has nearly 
everything to do and holds the place occupied 
by the Bank of England in Great Britain. The 
legal tender act of 1862 was a reversal of ancient 
theory and practice. The Government, assum- 
ing to act as banker-in-chief, and putting a 
prohibitory fine upon every form of paper 
except government and national bank notes, 
diverted our medium of exchange from its natu- 
ral channels of development into the control of 
the central Government, enabled corporate 
wealth to create a monopoly of money and thus 

' Olive Branch, pp. 272-281. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION, 8/ 

crippled the productive activities of unfavored 
sections. The National Banking law, regulating 
reserves, has had a tendency to accumulate 
available cash means in a few large cities/ The 
immense capabilities of the North, the energy, 
enterprise, capacity, of this frugal, industrious, 
clever people, are not to be denied, nor under- 
rated, but equally it cannot be denied that 
whatever advantages accrue from the financial 
and commercial and economic policy of the 
Federal Government enure almost exclusively, 
or very disproportionately, to the North. 

In what has been written of the period during 
the war and between the peace with Great 
Britain and the inauguration of our present gov- 
ernment, reference has been necessary to the 
opinions and acts of General Washington. In- 
stitutions are often but the crystalization of the 
thoughts and deeds of single men. America, 
in her military and civil struggle, was favored 
with many noble men and women (the South in 
unstinted prodigality contributing her full pro- 
portion), who, in varied fortunes, in dire emer- 
gencies, in prolonged weariness of hope deferred 
and severe disasters, exhibited a fortitude, a 
nobility of soul, a recuperative energy, a capac- 
ity to extemporize expedients and to wring 
victory out of defeats, a quenchless patriotism, 
that the annals of the world do not surpass. 
Yet the one conspicuous figure, the one leader 
without a fellow or a rival, the one m.an who 

^ Brough's Natural Law of Money, i6o, 162. 



88 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

more than all others was the Moses, the Joshua, 
the counsellor, the lawgiver, the general, the 
unselfish public officer, was a Virginian, and a 
slaveholder. With a handful of men poorly 
provisioned, clad and armed, he conducted 
campaigns which would have reflected credit on 
Marlborough or Napoleon. Disaffection, mu- 
tiny, treason more harmful and dangerous than 
the well-disciplined and well-equipped forces of 
the enemy, only developed brighter and more 
sterling qualities of character, just as outnumber- 
ing, flanking and defeats only called out greater 
exhibitions of military strategy and genius. In 
the acclamations which success elicited we for- 
get '' the intrigues which disgraced the Northern 
army and imperilled the safety of the country," 
the machinations to supplant the Commander- 
in-chief with Horatio Gates, full " of meanness 
and duplicity," ^ and the petty spites and sec- 
tional jealousies and harsh criticisms of even 
such patriots as Hancock and John Adams and 
Samuel Adams. The accumulating and con- 
stantly-repeated difficulties and trials never 
repressed nor crushed his sublime will. With- 
out the ordinary agencies, he carried on offen- 
sive and defensive war, and won results through 
" sheer force of genius," by wariness, vigilance, 
skill, wisdom, audacity. Clothed with extra- 
ordinary, almost dictatorial powers, authorized 
at one time, to raise infantry, artillery, cavalry, 
engineers, from all parts of the country, to 

' Fiske's Am. Rev., 253-6 ; 2 Il>., 35, 37. 



OF THE AMERICAN- UNION. 89 

appoint officers, to fill vacancies, to take private 
property, to arrest violators of civil law, he never 
acted rashly or imprudently, never subjected 
himself to harsh criticism, never was tempted 
into avarice, or self-seeking, or tyranny, but was 
always the embodiment of civic virtue, of mili- 
tary greatness, of incorruptible patriotism. The 
successful achievement of our independence 
enured not merely to the United States ; it was 
a victory for free institutions, for popular gov- 
ernment, for human liberty, for all countries, 
for all ages, and to Washington are the present 
and the future generations indebted for these 
incalculable blessings. Scarcely less are we in- 
debted to his consummate wisdom, his clear 
far-reaching intellect, for our own Constitution, 
for the resulting Union, for our federal, consti- 
tutional, representative Republic, for giving 
practical, demonstrated, vigorous life and suc- 
cess to the new government which started into 
being under circumstances of such doubt and 
peril.' With a century and more of national 
life, with all the glory of our unparalleled prog- 
ress, we have failed to appreciate the difficul- 
ties of the experiment of our nascent govern- 
ment, and we are just beginning to ascribe 
what is due to the military genius and states- 
manlike ability of the illustrious Southerner. 

Thackeray, in The Virgmians, referring to 
the struggle between the Colonies and the 
Mother Country, thus writes : 

^ 9 Sparks, 250; 2 Ban,, Con., 317. 



90 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

*' Washington inspiring order and spirit into 
troops hungry and in rags ; stung by ingrati- 
tude but betraying no anger, and ever ready to 
forgive ; in defeat invincible, magnanimous in 
conquest, and never so sublime as on that day 
when he lay down his victorious sword and 
sought his noble retirement — here indeed is a 
character to admire and revere ; a life without 
a stain, a flame without a flaw. Quando iiivenies 
parent ? " 

And another Englishman, the historian, John 
Richard Green, thus speaks of him : 

" No nobler figure ever stood in the forefront 
of a nation's life. Washington was grave and 
courteous in address ; his manners were simple 
and unpretending ; his silence and the serene 
calmness of his temper spoke of a perfect self- 
mastery, but there was little in his outer bearing 
to reveal the grandeur of soul which lifts his 
figure, with all the simpler majesty of an 
ancient statue, out of the smaller passions, the 
meaner impulses of the world around him. 
What recommended him for command as yet 
was simply his weight among his fellow land- 
owners of Virginia, and the experience of war 
which he had gained by service in Braddock's 
luckless expedition against Fort Duquesne. It 
was only as the weary fight went on that the 
colonists learned little by little the greatness of 
their leader — his clear judgment, his heroic en- 
durance, his silence under difficulties, his calm- 
ness in the hour of danger or defeat, the patience 



OF THE AMERICAN- UNION. 9 1 

With which he waited, the quickness and hard- 
ness with which he struck, the lofty and serene 
sense of duty that never swerved from its task 
through resentment or jealousy, that never 
through war or peace felt the touch of a meaner 
ambition, that knew no aim save that of guard- 
ing the freedom of his fellow-countrymen, and 
no personal longing save that of returning to his 
own fireside when their freedom was secured. 
It was almost unconsciously that men learned 
to cling to Washington with a trust and faith 
such as few other men have won, and to regard 
him with a reverence which still hushes us in 
presence of his memory." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

In the convention originated the two great 
parties which, under different names, have 
represented and more or less embodied the two 
theories of the nature and poHcy of the govern- 
ment — the centraHzing party and the States 
Rights party, involving not merely expedients 
of party policy but the character of the govern- 
ment, the construction of the Constitution and 
the design and effect of legislative measures. 
This conflict was prefigured by the ante-natal 
struggle which occurred between Jacob and 
Esau in the womb of Rebekah. One party, 
said Marshall (his statement discolored by his 
party relations), contemplated America as a 
nation, and labored incessantly to invest the 
federal head with powers competent to the pres- 
ervation of the Union, as in the supremacy of 
the General Government there was the only 
hope of escape from anarchy and civil war. 
The other attached itself to the State Govern- 
ments, viewed all the powers of Congress with 
jealousy, held mistrust of the Government to be 
the corner stone of freedom, and assented re- 
luctantly to measures which would enable the 
central head to act independently of the mem- 

92 



THE SOUTHERN STATES. 93 

bers.' Hamilton and Jefferson represented the 
two parties and their antagonistic theories. 
The States, by their accepted Constitution, had 
created a government of limited powers. Are 
they to be held strictly to the limitations of that 
instrument, or are they to have a system of 
loose construction which will transcend those 
powers ? Hamilton favored a centralized Na- 
tional Government, absorbing all power and 
granting to the people certain privileges. His 
plan was that Congress should have power to 
pass all laws they shall judge necessary to the , 
common defense and general welfare of the 
Union. Jefferson believed in the capacity of 
man for self-government in his local affairs, and 
that only those powers should be conferred 
upon the Federal Government which were 
especially granted in a written constitution. 
His plan was the support of the State Govern- 
ments in all their rights, as the most competent 
administrations for our domestic concerns and 
the surest bulwark against anti-republican tend- 
encies. He pronounced the tenth of the amend- ^ 
ments to the Constitution its corner stone." 
A dogmatic political philosophy has twisted 
and perverted the facts of American history to 
sustain its definitions and doctrines.' A body 
of traditions has gathered around the genesis 
of the Government, falsifying the veritable 

* I Life of Washington, 33. 

2 See Hamilton's A Federal Union not a Nation. 

3 Small, 7. 



94 THE SqUTHERN STATES 

records, misconstruing documents, putting false 
glosses upon words, interpolating sinister motives 
and purposes, and giving strained and unnatural 
meanings to simple words. A theory of national 
development, wholly foreign to stubborn facts, 
has been advocated by statesmen and historians, 
and made the basis of judicial dicta and deci- 
sions, of executive proclamations and messages, 
of legislative enactments. This has been done 
so persistently and continuously, and with such 
an array of great names, and such a command 
of the agencies for making and controlling 
public opinion, that the task of rectifying seems 
Sisyphan. What, in so far as it exists, has been 
the process of slow evolution, or '' the proces- 
sion of gradual advance," is asserted to have had 
a Minerva birth, and to have been of instantane- 
ous creation. The relation of the colonies to 
the Continental Congress has been misinter- 
preted or travestied, and false coloring has been 
given to individual utterances. Colonial action, 
induced by unselfish patriotism, or by a press- 
ing exigency, has been strained to justify a 
theory antipodal to the plainest history. These 
assumptions and fallacies are gravely incorpor- 
ated into history, and into public documents, to 
excite prejudice against men and parties and 
sections, and palliate or warrant what, in the 
better days of the Republic, would have been 
scouted even by the school of Alexander Ham- 
ilton. Where national sovereignty resided, if 
anywhere, was a vexata quaestio, until it was 



OF THE AMERICAN. UNION. 95 

decided in 1865 by the arbitrament of arms. 
The Declaration of Independence declared the 
acting colonies to be, not a nation, or union, 
but free and independent States. As such they 
antedated the Constitution and the resulting 
Union. Each original State, politically organ- 
ized as a unit, possessed in severalty all the 
powers of a political sovereignty. The treaty 
of alliance with France in 1778 was made " be- 
tween the most Christian King and the United 
States of North America, to wit. New Hamp- 
shire, etc.," enumerating them all by name. 
Under the Articles adopted at Philadelphia, 
July 9, 1778, ' the sovereignty and independence 
of the States was placed in the forefront of the 
Declaration of Confederacy. The form observed 
in the treaty with France was repeated in the 
treaties with the Netherlands in 1782, and with 
Sweden in 1783. Foreign nations, in treating 
with the revolutionary government, considered 
that they treated with distinct sovereignties, 
through their common agent, and not with a 
new nation composed of all those sovereign 
countries fused into one. The provisional arti- 
cles with Great Britain in 1782 proceeded upon 
the same idea. She did not make a treaty of 
peace with the people of the United States, but, 
by name, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jer- 
sey, Georgia, etc., are acknowledged as free, 
sovereign and independent States and treated 
with as such. Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, 

' 19 How, 441-502 ; 9 "\\Tiea, 187. 



96 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

in the Convention of 1787, said: '* Foreign 
States have made treaties with us as confederate 
States, not as .a national government." "Surely 
historical evidence could scarcely be clearer than 
that which points to the fact — recognized, de- 
clared, undisputed — of the sovereignty and 
independence of the individual States prior to 
the adoption of the Constitution." ^ This doc- 
trine of State sovereignty was the creed of a 
large majority of States and statesmen for more 
than three fourths of the years of our first cen- 
tury. ^ The question in whom resided the right 
of ultimate decision on a disputed point of con- 
stitutional law, where reposed the primary and 
paramount allegiance of an American citizen, 
never had a satisfactory or an accepted solution, 
until the adoption of the amendments to the 
Constitution, subsequent to the war between 
the States. The opposing views, as to the ex- 
tent of powers conferred upon the General 
Government and the party to determine in case 
of conflict, were as open, as public, as well 
known as the existence of the Government 
itself. The studied and somewhat successful 
attempt to represent the Confederate States as 
having improvised a novel and unheard-of view 
of the relations of the States to the Federal 
Government, as the justification of their alleged 
"rebellion " or " treason," proceeds from blind 
ignorance of our whole constitutional and poli- 

^ Political Science Lectures of the Univ. of Michigan, 247. 
^l^ Peters, 584-597- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 97 

tical history, or from a bad purpose to get 
honor and credit by maligning and falsifying 
the opinions and actions of the subjugated. 

Writers on the Constitution have asserted 
that " one people," or a nation de facto, formed 
the Constitution. That ought to be easily 
determinable from surviving contemporaneous 
records. On the 6th of x\ugust, 1787, the Com- 
mittee reported the first draft of a Constitution. 
The preamble recited : " We, the people of the 
States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, etc., 
do ordain, declare, and establish the following 
Constitution." On the succeeding day, this 
preamble, utterly negativing all idea of con- 
solidation, and preserving carefully the entity 
and distinct sovereignty of the States, was 
unanimously adopted. No change was made in 
this preamble until the 8th of September, when 
a committee was appointed " to revise the 
style of," not to change the meaning of, the 
articles. On the 12th they made their report, 
using the language now found in the Constitu- 
tion, " We, the people of the United States." 
This change in the phraseology seems to have 
been accepted without comment, and the pre- 
sumption is irresistible that the Convention 
regarded the two forms as substantially the 
same.' The omission of the names had a con- 

^ Edward Everett, in an address at the Academy of Music, 

4th of July, 1861, said that " the States are not named in the 

Federal Constitution," In the second clause of Article I., in 

providing for representation, until an enumeration should be 

7 



98 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

elusive reason for it, for, unlike the Articles of 
Confederation, unanimity was not required for 
the adoption or validity of the Constitution. It 
was to become obligatory on the States adopt- 
ing, when nine had ratified ; and no human pre- 
science could forecast the action of the States in 
their free and separate deliberations. As has 
been stated, Rhode Island was not even repre- 
sented, and neither she nor North Carolina 
ratified until after Washington had been in- 
augurated as President. A form of expression 
was necessarily devised so as to apply to and 
cover the States which should become members 
of the Government. " The people of His Ma- 
jesty's Colonies," " the people of the united 
Colonies," ''the people of the United States," 
are modes of expression which frequently oc- 
curred, without intending in any wise to deny 
or surrender the separateness of the several 
Colonies or States. The people of the several 
Colonies were never a unit in a political sense, 
neither before nor after the Declaration of Inde- 

made, each State is mentioned, and Rhode Island and North 
Carolina are not omitted, as their application was confidently 
anticipated. Mr. Motley, in 1861, wrote a letter to the Lon- 
don Times, on " Causes of the War," and permitted himself to 
say '* the name of no State " is mentioned in the whole docu- 
ment, and that " it was not ratified by the States," but "by 
the people of the whole land in their aggregate capacity acting 
through conventions, etc." And this statement was made in 
the face of an express provision of Article VII. "that the 
ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient 
for the establishment of this Constitution between the States 
so ratifying the same." 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 99 

pendence. They were never a nation, nor an 
entire community, contradistinguished from the 
people of the several States, having, as such, 
community rights and powers of a political 
character. The Revolutionary Government, as 
has been amply shown, was emphatically a 
Government of the States, through Congress, 
as their agent, with very limited powers. The 
ohrase of the preamble is the most common 
reliance of those who claim the nationality 
and sovereignty of the General Government, 
and it is confidently quoted as tantamount to 
the lodging in the hands of the Government 
all the powers that belong to any other Govern- 
ment qua Government." If the Constitution had 
been made by " the people " of the United 
States " in their collective capacity," a certain 
portion, /w//«/««V the majority, would have 
had that right. Did such majority ever act? 
Can the time or the occasion be specified when 
power was visibly exercised by others than 
those personally delegated by the organized 
political peoples of the several States? Was 
there any mode prescribed by which the major- 
ity might act ; or, if acting, by which their will 
could be, or was, ascertained? It is possible 
that the Constitution became the fundamental 
law by the suffrages of a minoxity, for we know 
that it was laid before the conventions of sev- 
eral States and by them ratified and adopted, 
each State acting for itself, without reference to 

I See Cooley's Cmst. Limita., 5, 



100 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

any other State, and that the Government was 
put into operation, when the necessary number 
was obtained, without counting the aggregate 
vote, or waiting to inquire whether a majority 
of the people had assented. The " people of the 
United States," in the sense held by the Na- 
tionalists, were not the authors of the Constitu- 
tion, and could not have formed it, since they 
did not appoint the Convention, nor ratify their 
act, nor in any way adopt it as obligatory upon 
them. It was voted for by States in the Con- 
vention, submitted to the people of each State 
separately, and became the Constitution only 
of the States adopting it. " The people of 
the United States," as a political organism, 
never had an existence ; in the aggregate, never 
performed a single political act, never was 
entrusted with any civil function, never was 
appealed to for sanction to any proceeding, 
and never can do what a National Government 
might do, without an entire radical revolution 
of our system of constitutional, representative, 
confederated republics. It seems conclusive of 
controversy to say that the Government of the 
United States has no inherent powers whatever, 
none by virtue of the fact that it is a Govern- 
ment. Its powers are all derivative, nominated 
in the bond, specifically granted, and what is 
not granted was reserved to the States re- 
spectively, or to the people thereof. The Gen- 
eral Assembly of Virginia of 1798 says forcibly 
of another portion of the preamble : " Had the 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. loi 

States been despoiled of their sovereignty by 
the generality of the preamble, had the Federal 
Government been endowed with whatever they 
should judge to be instrumental towards jus- 
tice, tranquillity, common defence, general wel- 
fare, and the preservation of liberty, nothing 
could have been more frivolous than an enu- 
meration of powers." * The Constitution is 
federative in the power which framed it, in the 
power which adopted and ratified it, in the 
power which sustains and keeps it alive, in the 
power by which alone it can be altered or 
amended, and is federative in the structure of 
all its departments. In no sense is our Federal 
Government a democracy, or do the people 
rule en masse. The doctrine of State co-opera- 
tion, of concurrent majorities, of restraints 
upon mere popular will, of checks and balances, 
runs through and dominates the whole system. 
The Government of the Union is the creature 
of the States." It is not a party to the Consti- 
tution, but the result of it, as made by the 
constituent States, and cannot, as originally 
formed and designed, exist independently of it, 
or of the States, its creators. The Union, so 
much lauded and so beneficial and necessary, is 
not a self-existing thing. It is a consequence, 
a creation, and whatever powers it possesses or 
can exercise, whatever authority it can use, 
whatever allegiance it can claim, grow out of 

^ Upshur, 7g, 

^ Pomeroy, Constitutional La^v^ § 54-56. 



I02 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

the voluntary and separate acts of the several 
States. The States are united to the extent of 
the delegated powers ; beyond those the States 
are not in a union. As forcibly stated by Mr. 
Justice Nelson, '' the General Government, and 
the States, although both exist within the same 
territorial limits, are separate and distinct sov- 
ereignties, acting separately and independently 
of each other, within their respective spheres. 
The former in its appropriate sphere is su- 
preme; but the States within the limits of 
their powers not granted, or, in the language 
of the Tenth Amendment, ' reserved,' are as 
independent of the General Government as 
that Government within its sphere is inde- 
pendent of the States." ^ Outside the granted 
powers, or what is necessarily implied from the 
granted, the General Government, the Union, 
has no more right, power, authority, control, 
dominion, over Massachusetts or Montana than 
it has over Austria or Chili. Within the powers 
reserved, and not prohibited to the States and 
not delegated to the General Government, 
Colorado or Connecticut is as free from inter- 
ference or control by the Government at Wash- 
ington, or should be under the Constitution, as 
Turkey or Japan or Brazil. The Federal theory 
of our Government made the party which has 
sedulously guarded the States against encroach- 
ment or usurpation, and has construed the 
Constitution strictly in its grants and limitations. 

* The Collector V. Day, ii Wall. 113, 124. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 103 

Standing over in antagonism to this is the oppos- 
ing view as to the extent of the powers con- 
ferred upon the Government, — a view which 
makes the Government a creature of national 
sovereignty, and in its machinery of administra- 
tion independent of, and superior to, the weal 
of State governments. This theory makes the 
National Government the ultimate and sole in- 
terpreter of its own powers, with no remedy 
except revolution against usurpation ; for there 
can be no difference between a government 
having originally all powers, and one having the 
right to take what powers it pleases. At one 
time, in the progress of framing the Constitu- 
tion, the words " National Government " were 
inserted, but after debate, on motion of Mr. 
Ellsworth of Connecticut, were stricken out 
unanimously, thus showing that the Convention 
intended the Government to be Federal, not 
National. Mr. Calhoun, in 181 1, used this clear 
and terse language: *'The chief object for 
which the Constitution was formed was to give 
the General Government power, security, and 
respectabiHty abroad. In our relations with 
foreign countries, where strength of Govern- 
ment and national security were most required, 
the powers of our Government are undivided. 
In those exterior relations abroad, this Govern- 
ment is the sole and exclusive representative of 
the united majority, sovereignty, and power of 
the States constituting this great and glorious 
Union. To the rest of the world, we are one. 



104 ^^^ SOUTHERN STATES 

Neither State nor State Government is known 
beyond our borders. ... It is only at home, 
in their internal relations that they are many." 
There is no necessary antagonism between the 
State and Federal systems of Government. 
Each in its orbit is sovereign. In the exercise 
of delegated functions, the Federal Govern- 
ment is supreme, and in all else the State is 
sovereign. 

The Constitution was a compromise between 
sharply conflicting views. "The compact by 
which the several States were fused into one 
united body would never have taken place with- 
out the concession which is found enacted into 
words in the instrument of Union." ' Some of 
the ablest men of the time had ideas very 
remote from the plan adopted, and looked with 
distrust and apprehensions of evil upon the 
RepubHcan idea. Alexander Hamilton,'' the 
founder of the consoHdation school of politics, 
although he powerfully contributed, by his 
essays in the Federalist, to the ratification of 
the Constitution, expressed frankly his doubts 
as to the success of " the experiment." General 
Washington, after the war, before the Constitu- 
tion was framed, confessed that he was puzzled 
to account for the "monarchical ideas" in New 
England, when it would have been more natural 
to expect such ideas at the South. Afterwards, 
in the early administrations, federalism had 

^ Mich. Lect., 152. 

'^ Hamilton's Reminiscences , iii,, 298. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 105 

almost its entire strength at the North, while 
republicanism was largely preponderant at the 
South. Very naturally a party, headed by one 
who had avowed his opinion that the monarchy 
of England was the best Government in the 
world, "the happiest device of human ingen- 
uity," inclined to a liberal construction of 
national powers and sought by ingenious and 
latitudinous interpretation to enlarge the sphere 
and functions of the Government, to centralize 
authority and to reduce the States to provincial 
dependencies. Not being in sympathy with the 
paper originally, he determined to make it by 
expansive construction what he had failed to 
make it in the convention/ In an address to 
the people in 1798, the Virginia House of Dele- 
gates complained of the effort of the Federalists 
in "establishing by successive precedents such 
a mode of construing the Constitution as will 
rapidly remove every restraint upon Federal 
power." The compact and powerful organiza- 
tion of men, known as Federalists, hostile to 
popular rights and honestly inclined to a strong 
government, resisted those who held that no 
power should be conceded to exist unless con- 
veyed in unmistakable terms. 

The sectional feeling, which was such a dis- 
turbing or hindering cause in the effort to agree 

1 In 1791, Hamilton said: " I oato it is my opinion, though 
I do not publish it in Dan or Beersheba, that the present ^ 

Government is not that which will answer the en ds of society, 
by gi^^ng stability and protection to its rights, and that it will 
probably be found expedient to go to the British form.'" 



I06 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

upon a common Government, became mis- 
chievous during Washington's administration. 
This jealousy manifested itself painfully in re- 
sisting and defeating the admission of Kentucky 
into the Union, until Vermont was ready to 
come in as a counterpoise and balance. The 
alien and sedition laws, passed by Congress 
during John Adams's presidency, filled the 
country with alarm and drew forth expositions 
of the Constitution which became the text-book 
of political faith, and were recognized by a 
great party as late as 1856, as the true interpre- 
tation of the character of our Government. The 
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 
1799, and Madison's Report thereon, first put 
into clear and logical form of statement the 
States-Rights theory of our Federal compact. 
The action of Kentucky and Virginia illustrates 
how the people of those States, under the 
leadership of Jefferson and Madison, rallied to 
the defence of the Constitution and interposed 
to prevent legislative and executive usurpa- 
tions. Virginia explicitly declared " that it 
views the powers of the Federal Government 
as resulting from the compact to which the 
States are parties as limited by that compact, 
as no farther valid than as they are authorized 
by the grants enumerated in that compact ; and 
that in a case of deliberate, palpable, and dan- 
gerous exercise of other powers not granted by 
said compact, the States, who are parties thereto, 
have the right and are in duty bound to inter- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 10/ 

pose for arresting the progress of the evil and 
for maintaining, within their respective Hmits, 
the authority, rights, and liberties appertaining 
thereto." ^ The address speaks of those " en- 
trusted with the guardianship of the State sov- 
ereignty," and says that it was admitted by the 
early friends of the Constitution, " that the 
State sovereignties were only diminished by 
powers specifically enumerated, or necessary to 
carry the specified powers into effect." The 
Kentucky Resolutions, drawn by Mr. Jefferson, 
declare the Constitution to be a compact, and 
that " if those who administer the General Gov- 
ernment be permitted to transgress the limits 
fixed by that compact, by a total disregard to 
the special delegations of power therein con- 
tained, an annihilation of the State Governments 
and the creation upon their ruins of a general 
consolidated Government will be the inevitable 
consequence " ; that the principle and construc- 
tion contended for by sundry of the State Leg- 
islatures that the General Government is the 
exclusive judge of the extent of the powers 
delegated to it, " stop nothing short of despot- 
ism since the discretion of those who adminis- 
ter the Government and not the Constitution 
would be the measure of their powers ; that 
the several States who formed the instrument, 
being sovereign and independent, have the 
unquestionable right to judge of the infraction ; 
and that a nullification by those sovereignties 

^ 3 Jefferson's Works, 428 ; 6 Hamilton's Works, 348, 



I08 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

of all unauthorized acts done under color of 
that instrument is the rightful remedy." 

These utterances by the purest patriots, famil- 
iar with the organic law in its origin and intent, 
prove, if no more, that what has been ascribed, 
in its origin and proclamation, to the impetuous 
and rebellious spirit of the South in modern 
times, was a clearly stated and unanswerably 
reasoned theory of the greatest statesmen of 
the better days of the Republic. Henry Cabot 
Lodge says ' : "It was probably necessary, at 
all events Mr. Webster felt it to be so, to argue 
that the Constitution at the outset was not a 
compact between the States, but a national in- 
strument, and to distinguish the cases of Vir- 
ginia and Kentucky in 1799, ^^^ of New Eng- 
land in i8i4,from that of South Carolina in 1830. 
. . . Unfortunately the facts were against 
him in both instances. When the Constitution 
was adopted by the votes of States at Philadel- 
phia, and accepted by the votes of States in 
popular conventions, it is safe to say that there 
was not a man in the country, from Washing- 
ton and Hamilton on the one side to George 
Clinton and George Mason on the other, who 
regarded the new system as anything but an 
experiment entered upon by the States, and 
from which each and every State had the right 
peaceably to withdraw, a right which was very 
likely to be exercised." 

Wendell Phillips, in New Bedford, Mass., in 

* Webster^ p. 176. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. IO9 

1861, said that the States who think their pecul- 
iar institutions require a separate Government, 
" have a right to decide that question without 
appealing to you or to me." A convention in 
Ohio in 1859, declared the Constitution a com- 
pact to which each State acceded as a State, 
and is an integral party, and that each State 
had the right to judge for itself of infractions, 
and of the mode and measure of redress, and to 
this declaration Giddings, Wade, Chase, and 
Denison assented. 



CHAPTER IX. 

In the earlier years of the Government, it 
was viewed as a doubtful experiment by many 
good men in America, and regarded with aver- 
sion and hostility by the rulers and the Govern- 
ments of the old world. Our free institutions 
were adjudged and disparaged as a protest 
against tyranny and absolutism, a defiant 
declaration of the personal and civil rights of 
the people, and a challenge to all the world to 
show cause why a few families should usurp the 
prerogative of dominion. The feeling which 
ultimately led to the Holy Alliance and the 
league of reigning dynasties in Europe against 
popular liberties, and the covenant for mutual 
support against popular revolution, showed in- 
sulting and unrelenting hatred of the principles 
of our representative Government. Our claim 
to equality among the nations of the earth was 
disregarded and denied. The United States 
was contemptuously ignored and habitually 
maltreated. The ocean was not free to us. 
Our flag was not respected. The laws of 
nations were construed as inapplicable to us. 
Great Britain, sore and mortified at her loss of 
Colonies, and at their rapid growth in wealth 
and power, took the lead in measures resentful 

no 



THE SOUTHERN STATES. Ill 

and disdainful, and studiously sought to reduce 
the United States to inequality, and to make 
us feel and acknowledge inferiority. Our com- 
merce was crippled, our vessels were visited and 
searched, our sailors were impressed. Claims 
for indemnity, demands for reparation, protests 
against national wrongs, were unheeded or 
causelessly procrastinated, and every injury 
seemed only a provocation and a license to 
greater wrongs and outrages. Our Embargo and 
Non-Intercourse acts, punitive of our enemies 
and protective of ourselves, failed of their pur- 
pose abroad and encountered bitterest opposi- 
tion in New England. A struggle for supremacy 
between France and England, a fierce and 
mighty war, commanding all their passions and 
energies, made these belligerents disregard our 
rights and interests as a neutral and peaceable 
power and our independence as one of the 
nations of the earth. England, having the 
largest navy and the immunity of her island 
home, was especially conspicuous, wilful and 
insolent in violating neutral rights and prosecut- 
ing a quasi war, subjecting our maritime rights 
to the arbitrary rule of her will. Vessels were 
seized in our own ports and confiscated, sailors 
were torn from ships floating the Stars and 
Stripes, and coerced into service on English 
men-of-war. At that period, Calhoun came into 
the House of Representatives, and he and Clay 
and Crawford and Cheves and Lowndes and 
Forsyth and Grundy and Troup and R. M. 



112 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

Johnson, in burning words of indignant patriot- 
ism/ aroused the country by showing England's 
purpose to drive our flag from the seas and 
reduce us again to colonial vassalage. They 
made the people see that the only alternative 
was war or degradation. The opposition this 
resistance to English wrong encountered gave 
the contest in Congress somewhat of a sectional 
aspect. ''The war of 1812," says Adams, " was 
chiefly remarkable for the vehemence with 
which, from beginning to end, it was resisted 
and thwarted by a very large number of citi- 
zens, . . . who considered themselves by 
no means the least respectable, intelligent, or 
patriotic part of the nation." ^ 

As early as 1793, when peace with Europe 
was endangered by Genet's machinations, there 
were those in New England who, in no dubious 
language, urged that a dissolution of the Union 
was preferable to a war with Great Britain. 
Timothy Dwight wrote: "A war with Great 
Britain we, at least in New England, will not 
enter into. Sooner would ninety-nine out of 
one hundred of our inhabitants separate from 
the Union than plunge themselves into an abyss 
of misery." ^ The inconsistent attitude of New 
England was a little remarkable. In 1748, re- 
sistance to a press-gang resulted in a riot in the 

1 6 Hildreth's U. S., 259, 260. 
^ 6 Adams's Hist, of the U. S., 224, 229. 
3 4 Hildreth, 412, 440, 477-8. i Von Hoist, 112-118. But- 
ler's Effect of the War of 1812, 10. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. II3 

streets of Boston. In 1768, the frigate Ronmey, 
guarding the harbor of Boston, seized several of 
the citizens and impressed them as seamen. 
The insolence was then stigmatized as wanton 
cruelty and violative of natural right. As a 
rule the Eastern States were opposed to the 
war, but President Madison of Virginia recom- 
mended a declaration. His message complained 
that British cruisers had violated the American 
flag on the ocean, and seized and carried off 
persons sailing under it, that they had violated 
the peace of the coasts and harassed entering 
and departing commerce ; that the British Gov- 
ernment had established fictitious blockades 
without the presence of an adequate force, and 
sometimes without the practicability of applying 
one, by means of all which American commerce 
had been plundered on every sea, and that it 
had perpetrated this wrong most flagrantly by 
a system of blockades known as the Orders in 
Council. Mr. Calhoun, of South Carolina, re- 
ported from the Committee on Foreign Affairs 
a bill recognizing war. All the Senators and 
Representatives from South Carolina, Georgia, 
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Louisiana, and the 
most of them from Maryland, Virginia, and 
North Carolina, supported the declaration, which 
had the concurrence of such cities as Baltimore, 
Charleston, and New Orleans. 

Governor Strong of Massachusetts issued a 
Proclamation for a public fast in consequence 
of the war just declared " against the nation 



114 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

from which we are descended, and which for 
many generations has been the bulwark of the 
religion we profess." The returning members 
of Congress, who had voted for the war, met 
an offensive and insulting reception even to the 
point of actual assault. One was seized in Ply- 
mouth and kicked through the town. " By 
energetic use of a social machinery, still al- 
most irresistible, the Federalists and the clergy 
checked or prevented every effort to assist the 
war either by money or enlistments." From 
the pulpit, prostituted to party and treasonable 
purposes, the war was denounced as " unholy, 
unrighteous, wicked, abominable, and accursed." 
Boston newspapers declared that any Federalist, 
"who loaned money to the Government, would 
be called infamous, and forfeit all claim to 
common honesty." ' The Supreme Court of 
Massachusetts decided that no power was given 
to the President or to Congress to determine 
the actual existence of the exigencies upon 
which the militia of the several States may be 
employed in the service of the United States, 
and that to the Governor belonged the right 
to decide when the constitutional exigency 
existed. "^ The Governor refused the request of 
the President for the quota of militia to defend 
the coast, and the House of Representatives 
declared the war to be a wanton sacrifice of 

* Olive Branch, pp. 298, 301. 

^ Correspondence between J. Q. Adams and Citizens of 
Mass., 36. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. II5 

their best interests and asked the exertions of 
the people of the State to thwart it. The dis- 
affection of Connecticut was equally treason- 
able. The Governor withdrew the militia from 
the national service, and made it subject to 
orders issued by State authority.' New Hamp- 
shire was not far behind. Governor Plumer 
says, '' The federals made my calling out the 
militia, in obedience to the laws of Congress 
and by order of the Federal Government, to 
save the national capital in 18 12, the rallying 
point against me. I lost votes enough from 
this cause to have elected me Governor." In 
1 8 14 Governor Gilman called out some com- 
panies of militia to defend Portsmouth, and his 
party associates murmured greatly at it. Many 
worthy citizens were seen to rejoice over British 
victories and to mourn over those of their own 
country.' When Jackson, in January, 1813, left 
with his brigade to reinforce General Wilkinson 
at New Orleans, he wrote to the Secretary of 
War informing him that he was in command of 
2070 volunteers, choicest citizens of Tennessee, 
who had " no conscientious scruples " about 
executing the will of the Government, or march- 
ing beyond the limits of their State, and would 
rejoice to '' banish effectually from the Southern 
coast all British influence." Not being allowed 
at that time to proceed, he again wrote : " Should 
the safety of the lower country admit, and the 

1 6 Adams, 399, 402. " Life of Phcmer, 406, 414. 



Il6 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

Government so order, I would, with pleasure, 
march to the lines of Canada, and there en- 
deavor to wipe off the stain on our military 
character occasioned by the recent disasters," 
referring to the surrender of Detroit by General 
Hull and subsequent military miscarriages. 

The treaty of peace was signed at Ghent, 
December 24, 1814, but was not, in official 
form, delivered to the Secretary of State, by a 
special messenger, until February 13, 181 5. 
Meantime, the victory of New Orleans had 
been gained on January 8, 18 15, which put an 
end to sectional machinations, and gave the 
Government a triumph over all immediate 
dangers, internal and external. Peace was wel- 
comed everywhere, and resources, crippled by 
the suspension of commerce, sprang suddenly 
into prosperity. Adams says : " New England 
was pleased at the contrast between her own 
prosperity and the sufferings of her neighbors. 
The blockade and the embargo brought wealth 
to her alone. Wheels roll, spindles whirl, shut- 
tles fly. New England banks were believed to 
draw not less than half a million dollars every 
month from the South." "Money is such a 
drug that men are willing to lend it secretly to 
support the very measures intended and calcu- 
lated for their ruin." ' 

The war, which gave such a shining illustra- 
tion of our military and naval prowess, was 

^ 8 Adams, 14, 55. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. WJ 

rightly called the second war of Independence. 
In its glories, officers and men from the South 
had a conspicuous part. The effect of the war 
was to vindicate our equality and independence 
among the nationalities of the world. It gave 
us a position of dignity, importance, and power 
which has never been diminished. It was a 
wholesome agency in promoting national unity, 
in developing national patriotism and courage, 
military and naval skill and ability, in quieting 
for many years sectional discord, and demon- 
strating our unaided competency to defend our 
soil and coasts, and cope successfully with the 
best disciplined army and the most formidable 
navy of the old world. 

In this war, and in the various Indian wars 
which have occurred in Alabama, Florida, the 
West, on the frontiers, and in the Territories, 
it will hardly be questioned that the Southern 
States did their full duty in soldiers furnished, 
privations endured, and services rendered. 

In the war with Mexico, from Palo Alto to 
the taking of the capital city, in contributions 
of officers and men, in skill of command and 
gallantry of rank and file, the South cannot con- 
sent to be placed in an inferior position to any, 
however meritorious, that may be assigned to 
the North. A carefully prepared table presents 
this exhibit : 

Total number of Volunteers from the South, 45,640 

" " North, 23,084 



Il8 THE SOUTHERN STATES. 

It will be seen, if it be taken into consideration 
that the population of the North was two thirds 
greater than that of the South, that the latter 
furnished more than three times her proportion 
of volunteers. 



CHAPTER X. 

Sir Charles Dilke has a striking book on 
the Greater Britain^ and Professor Seeley has a 
suggestive volume on The Expansion of Eng- 
land, The territorial area of the United States, 
since they were organized into the Union of 
the Constitution, has been more than quad- 
rupled. In 1789, the area was 829,600 square 
miles. By the acquisition of Louisiana the area 
obtained was 1,182,752 square miles; by the 
Florida cession of February 22, 18 19, 59,258 
square miles ; by the treaty of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo, February 2, 1848, 522,568 square 
miles; by the annexation of Texas, in 1845, 
f 371,063 square miles, 96,707 of which were 
ceded to the United States and became a por- 
tion of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas ; by 
the Gadsden purchase, December 30, 1853, 
45,535 square miles; by Mexican cessions, 
1848-1853, 591,318 square miles; and by the 
Alaska purchase of March 30, 1867, 577,390 
square miles. The manner of acquisition has 
been by treaty and by annexation. 

The history, in adequate recital, of the nego- 
tiations and other steps by which Louisiana — 
with its immense sweep of territory, compris- 
ing everything (except Texas) between the 

119 



120 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

Mississippi and the crest of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, and embracing the States of Louisiana, 
Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, 
Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, and parts of 
Colorado, Minnesota, and Idaho, and the Indian 
Territory, — and Florida, Texas, CaHfornia, Ari- 
zona, and New Mexico have been added to the 
Union, would fill a volume. 

The purchase of Louisiana, necessitated by 
national safety and unity, was fortunately and 
wisely made by Jefferson for $15,000,000. Of 
the indispensableness of our control of the mouth 
and of the navigation of the Mississippi, and of 
the incalculable value of the vast acquisition, 
there are now not two opinions, and yet the 
Federalists in 1803 objected because the ac- 
quirement would give the South a preponder- 
ance which would '' continue for all time," the 
States created west of the Mississippi would in- 
jure the commerce of New England, and the 
" admission of the Western world into the 
Union would compel the Eastern States to es- 
tablish an Eastern empire." ^ The purchase 
came near bringing to a head the threats and 
wishes of separation, and provoked certain 
leaders to devising formal and earnest plans 
for a dissolution of the Union. The fear of 
wrong and oppression inflamed New England 
to a pitch of violence and treason. New Eng- 
land is habitually represented by her historians 
and orators as always loyal and abhorrent of 

^ Cooper's American Politics, 16. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 121 

every scheme of nullification and disunion, and 
no terms of vilification and obloquy are too 
severe for the South, and yet secession had its 
genesis in New England, and in not a few in- 
stances, when her material interests were appa- 
rently endangered, has she insisted on her right 
of resistance, carried even to nullification or 
separation. 

One of the most singular illustrations ever 
presented of the power of literature to conceal 
and pervert truth, to modify and falsify history, 
to transfer odium from the guilty to the inno- 
cent, is found in the fact that the reproach of 
disunion has been slipped from the shoulders 
of the North to those of the South. As early 
as 1786 the situation became " dangerous in the 
extreme." The agitation in Massachusetts was 
great, and it was declared that if Jay's negotia- 
tion for closing the Mississippi for twenty-five 
years could not be adopted, it was high time 
for the New England States to secede from the 
Union and form a confederation by themselves.^ 
Plumer traces secession movements in 1792 and 
1794, and says that all dissatisfied with the 
measures of Government looked to a separation 
of the States as a remedy for oppressive griev- 
ance. In 1794 Fisher Ames said : '* The spirit of 
insurrection had tainted a vast extent of coun- 
try besides Pennsylvania." In 1796 Lieutenant- 
Governor Wolcott, of Connecticut, said : '' I 
sincerely declare that I wish the Northern 

' Fiske's Crit, Period, 211. 



122 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

States would separate from the Southern the 
moment that event (the election of Jefferson) 
shall take place." Although he was not elected 
until four years afterwards, the bare election 
without waiting for inauguration, or an overt 
act, was considered a sufficient cause for sepa- 
ration. In 1796 a voluntary and concerted 
withdrawal of the States north of the Poto- 
mac was advocated hy per se Disunionists from 
conviction of the desirableness of separation. 
From that year to 1800, and later. Federalist 
leaders in Connecticut set on foot and continued 
" an open propaganda for the dissolution of 
the Union." This was not from temporary 
exacerbation, but was based on the ground of 
permanent incompatibility in the same civil 
polity. Governor Plumer distinctly affirms that 
in 1805 the purpose of New England leaders, 
whose names he gives, was to dissolve the 
Union.^ 

These latent convictions were formed into a 
design immediately after, and as a consequence 
of, the acquisition of Louisiana. This purchase 
revived what Henry Adams calls " the old 
disunion project," because of the alleged dis- 
turbance of the sectional equilibrium.'^ John 
Quincy Adams published over his own signa- 
ture that the plot was formed in the winter of 
1803-4. *' The plan was so far matured that 
the proposal had been made to an individual to 

^ Life 0/ Flumer, 276, 278, 289-296, 309. 
^ Welling on the Conn, Federation, 9-17. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION: 1 23 

permit himself, at the proper time, to be placed 
at the head of the military movements, which 
it was foreseen would be necessary to carry it 
into execution." " A separation of the Union 
was openly stimulated in the public prints and 
a convention of delegates of the New England 
States, to meet at New Haven, was intended 
and proposed."^ In March, 1808, these facts 
were communicated by Adams to Jefferson. In 
that same year the Embargo brought to the 
surface the same remedy for ills, and in 1809 
Massachusetts declared that the Embargo was 
not legally binding on her citizens.'* Quincy 
urged the people to anticipate the evil and pre- 
pare against the event. The Essex Junto was 
formed in March, 18 10, and " their prime object 
was the dissolution of the General Government 
and a separation of the States." Griswold was 
a *' zealous advocate of the dismemberment of 
the Union." In 181 1, on a bill for the admis- 
sion of Louisiana, Josiah Quincy — of whom 
Lowell said, *' His fears were aroused for the 
balance of power between the old States, rather 
than by any moral sensitiveness, which would, 
indeed, have been an anachronism at that 
time " — used this language : '' I am compelled 
to declare it as my deliberate opinion that, if 
this bill passes, the bonds of the Union are vir- 
tually dissolved ; that the States which compose 
it are free from their moral obligations ; and 

' Hamilton's Reminiscences, 95, 109, no. 
2 Plumer, 293-6 ; ibid. , 290. 



124 '^^^ SOUTHERN STATES 

that as it will be the right of all, so it will be the 
duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separa- 
tion, amicably if they can, violently if they 
must." In 1 812, the desire for separation 
crystallized into a formal conspiracy. The 
New England Federalists, thinking that the 
National Government must cease its functions, 
that the States must resume their sovereign 
powers, and enter into some other political 
compact, fell upon the project of a New Eng- 
land convention, summoned by State authority. 
Their intention was to establish their new Gov- 
ernment under the authority and protection of 
the State Governments. The hostility to the 
war culminated in a convention at Hartford, at 
which delegates were present from all the New 
England States. This secret conclave was to 
adopt measures looking to a restoration of 
peace, and " the establishment of a new Federal 
compact, comprising the whole or a portion of 
the actual Union." The Boston Centinel, an- 
nouncing the adhesion of Connecticut and 
Rhode Island to the Convention, displayed the 
head-line, " Second and Third Pillars of a New 
England Edifice Reared." A Report adopted 
asserted the right and duty of a State to inter- 
pose its authority for the protection of its 
citizens from infractions of the Constitution by 
the General Government. The tone of the 
press and of the elections bore out the belief 
that a popular majority would have supported 
an abrupt and violent course, '' even to a dis^ 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 25 

ruption of the Union." President John Ouincy 
Adams remained a stubborn believer in the 
semi-treasonable purposes of the leaders of the 
body. Matthew Carey, in the Olive Branchy 
published in 18 14, affirms, over and over, that 
a project of separation was formed shortly after 
the adoption of the Constitution — was publicly 
advocated in some of the gazettes, and preached 
from the pulpit during Jefferson's administra- 
tion ; that unceasing endeavors were made to 
poison the minds of the people of the Eastern 
States and to alienate them from their fellow- 
citizens of the South, and that it was beyond 
doubt that during the war there existed in New" 
England a conspiracy, among a few of the 
most wealthy and influential citizens, to effect 
a dissolution of the Union, at every hazard, 
and to form a separate Confederacy.' 

Horatio Seymour, on October 8, 1880, in a 
public address in New York City, thus spoke : 

'' The first threat of disunion was uttered 
upon the floor of Congress by Josiah Ouincy, 
one of the most able and distinguished sons of 
Massachusetts. At an early day Mr. Hamilton 
with all his distrust of the Constitution, sent 
word to the citizens of Boston to stop their 
threats of disunion and to let the Government 
stand as long as it would. When our country 
was engaged with the superior power, popula- 
tion, and resources of Great Britain, when its 
armies were upon our soil, when the walls of its 
' See pp. 7, 49, 204, 205. 



V 



126 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

Capitol were blackened and marred by the fires 
kindled by our foes, and our Union was threat- 
ened with disasters, the leading oiificials and 
citizens of New England threatened resistance 
to the military measures of the Administration. 
This was the language held by a convention 
of delegates appointed by the Legislatures of 
three of the New England States, and by dele- 
gates from counties in Vermont and New Hamp- 
shire : * In cases of deliberate, dangerous, and 
palpable infractions of the Constitution, affect- 
ing the sovereignty of a State and liberties of 
the people, it is not only the right but the duty 
of such State to interpose for their protection 
in the manner best calculated to secure that 
end.' This covers the whole doctrine of Nulli- 
fication. They denounced the measures of the 
Administration for carrying on the war in de- 
fence of our country against invasion. ' They 
advised the Legislatures of the several States 
represented to adopt all such measures as may 
be necessary effectually to protect the citizens 
of said States from the operation and effects of 
all acts which have been or may be passed by 
Congress which shall contain provisions sub- 
jecting the militia or other citizens to forcible 
drafts, conscriptions, or impressments not au- 
thorized by the Constitution of the United 
States.' This was not the language of a mob 
excited by a draft which was admitted by the 
Administration to be unfair, and where it was 
conceded the draft in the city of New York ex- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 12/ 

ceeded the whole quota of Vermont, but it was 
the deliberate language of a solemn convention. 
The men who uttered these threats, which gave 
' aid and comfort ' to the enemies of this coun- 
try while they were burning its Capitol, were 
held in high esteem. To this day the names of 
George Cabot, Nathan Dove, Roger M. Sher- 
man, and their associates are honored in New 
England. The dissolution of the Union was 
urged by prominent men of the North and 
West at public meetings, and was loudly ap- 
plauded. When the anti-slavery agitation be- 
gan, those engaged in it took the extreme 
State-rights view throughout the North and 
West. These changes in the past admonish us 
of changes in the future, and that it is as un- 
wise to hate the South for its past errors as 
it would be to war on Northern or W^estern 
States for like heresies, for those are as guilty 
who originate as those who act upon them." 

The treaty of Ghent gave a quietus to the in- 
flammatory agitation and suspended the hostile 
purposes of the leaders. The " exigency of so 
momentous a crisis " as the continuation of the 
war having passed, another convention was not 
held in Boston as had been contemplated. 

J. Q. Adams said, in the letter already quoted 
from : " The two postulates for disunion were 
nearly consummated. The interposition of a 
kindly Providence, restoring peace to our coun- 
try and to the world, averted the most deplora- 
ble of catastrophes, and turning over to the 



128 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

receptacle of things lost upon earth the ad- 
journed convention from Hartford to Boston, 
extinguished (by the mercy of Heaven may it 
be forever !) the projected New England con- 
federacy." Some of the prominent plotters 
having denied Adams's statements, Governor 
Plumer bears this positive testimony : " I am 
certain that on retiring early one evening from 
dining with Aaron Burr, Mr. Hilhouse said, in 
an animated tone, ' The Eastern States must 
and will dissolve the Union and form a sepa- 
rate Government of their own ; and the sooner 
they do this the better.' I think the first man 
who mentioned the subject of a dismember- 
ment was Samuel Hunt, a representative from 
New Hampshire. But there was no man with 
whom I conversed so often, so fully and freely, 
as with Roger Griswold. He was, without 
doubt or hesitation, decidedly in favor of dis- 
solving the Union and establishing a Northern 
Confederacy." 

The acquisition of Florida was pursued with 
vigor by several administrations, and was so 
obviously required by geographical and national 
considerations, that it elicited little opposition 
at home ; and yet Monroe, who had been active 
in the negotiations from beginning to end, said 
that he took by the treaty less territory than 
Spain was willing to grant, because of the re- 
pugnance with which the Eastern part of the 
Union had long viewed the aggrandisement of 
the country towards the South and the West. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 



129 



The annexation of Texas, although the main 
issue in the Presidential election which resulted 
in the choice of James K. Polk over Henry Clay, 
called forth an outburst of violent antagonism, 
and brought into public addresses and legisla- 
tive resolves very similar protests and threats 
to those which fatigued the public ear after the 
purchase of Louisiana. In 1845, John Quincy 
Adams, Truman Smith, and other Congressmen 
from the Northern States declared, in a joint 
letter, that the annexation of Texas would jus- 
tify a dissolution of the Union and would lead 
to that result. The Legislature of Massachu- 
setts, at the session of 1844-5, followed by other 
New England States, resolved that they were 
not bound to recognize the annexation of Texas 
as obligatory on them. In 1845 the joint Stand- 
ing Committee on Federal Relations said: 
'' When Massachusetts is asked to violate the 
fundamental provisions of that Constitution as 
well as her own, she unhesitatingly throws her- 
self back on her rights as an independent State. 
She cannot forget that she had an independent 
existence and a constitution before the Union 
was formed. Her constitution secured to 
every one of her citizens the right of trial 
by jury and the privilege of the writ 
of habeas corpus, whenever their liberty 
was at stake. These essential elements of 
independence she has never bartered away. 
She will not suffer them to be wrested from her 
by any power on earth." The accession of this 



130 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

immense empire was designed and accomplished 
by Calhoun, Tyler, Jackson, Polk, and their 
political associates. That pure patriot and 
statesman, Robert C. Winthrop, although op- 
posed to the policy of the administration, was 
not seduced by passion or sectionalism into dis- 
loyalty, but gave as a patriotic toast ; '' Our 
Country, however bounded, still our Country." 
Mr. Bancroft, in 1806, writes : " Very soon after 
March 4, 1845, Mr. Polk, one day when I was 
alone with him, in the clearest manner and with 
the utmost energy, declared to me what were 
to be the four great measures of his administra- 
tion. He succeeded in all the four, and one of 
the four was the acquisition of California for 
the United States. This it was hoped to 
accomplish by peaceful negotiation ; but if 
Mexico, in resenting our acceptance of the offer 
of Texas to join us, should begin a war with us, 
then by taking possession of the Province." 
When the war was pending there was conclusive 
reason to believe that England was aiming to 
obtain a footing in the then Mexican province 
of California by an extensive system of coloni- 
zation. A grant of nearly fourteen millions of 
acres was issued to a British subject,^ on the 
express condition that Americans were to be 
kept out. 

At different times the country has been 
harassed by questions of national character and 
consequence, which happily passed without any 

' The Century^ April, 1891, pp. 919-927. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 131 

serious departure from the tradition and pledge 
of no entangling alliances with foreign nations. 
In 1848, a bill was introduced to enable the 
President to take temporary military possession 
of Yucatan. This had the support of promi- 
nent men of both sections ; but the true repre- 
sentatives of the South opposed it, as at war 
with the salutary rule of non-intervention, laid 
down by Mr. Jefferson, and which had grown 
into one of the received maxims of national 
policy. The popular upheavals in Europe, in 
1848, excited much interest, and there was 
naturally a universal rejoicing at the over- 
throw or weakening of monarchical Govern- 
ments, and the autocratic rule of human socie- 
ties, and at the assertion of the dependence of 
Governments for their legitimacy upon their 
conformity to the democratic will and regard 
for the general welfare, instead of upon nearly 
exclusive concern for the privileged classes. 
Expressions of satisfaction and congratulations 
upon the triumph of free principles were proper 
and perhaps required, but some extremists 
verged upon the French propagandism of the 
last century in the advocacy of our intervention 
to make permanently successful the revolutions 
which had had a beginning. The South, almost 
as a unit, resisted the departure from the rule 
of abstinence in the affairs of foreign Govern- 
ments. In 1850 there was an able debate in the 
Senate in favor of suspending diplomatic rela- 
tions with Austria, as a protest against atrocious 



132 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

acts of despotism, sacrificing human liberty and 
life, and in audacious contempt of the rights 
of man and of the sentiment of the civi- 
lized world. Sympathy with the oppressed 
Magyars and horror of Austrian cruelty and 
despotism did not beguile Southern sentiment 
and action into an interference with the right 
of foreign peoples to regulate their affairs 
without our of^cious or insolent intermeddling. 
The succeeding year, resolutions of sympathy 
with Louis Kossuth, authorizing the President 
to employ public vessels to convey him and his 
associates to this country, were introduced into 
the Senate and had strong support, " pretty 
much," said Senator Mason of Virginia, ^'in the 
West and North," but generally the South op- 
posed this attempt to commit the United States 
to any of the schemes for revolutionizing Eu- 
rope. When some of the Irish revolutionists 
of 1798 desired to come to this country as 
political exiles, Rufus King, our Minister to 
England, was instructed to protest, but Kos- 
suth was brought in a national ship. He was 
feted and honored, delivered speeches in the 
prominent cities, and displayed extraordinary 
capacity for public address and in the use of 
the English tongue. In 1852, a resolution, oc- 
casioned by the armed intervention of Russia 
between Austria and Hungary, was introduced 
by a Senator from Rhode Island, adhering to 
non-intervention as the true principle of our 
national prosperity, and yet laying down the 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 33 

specious but dangerous doctrine, that a just 
regard to our safety might require us to " ad- 
vance to the conflict " against the foes of con- 
stitutional freedom and human hberty, when a 
"prudent foresight" should warn us that our 
"liberties and institutions" were threatened. 
The section, ordinarily adjudged to be impetu- 
ous, hot-blooded, and revolutionary, was marked, 
in all these aggressive and neutrality-violating 
movements, by a wise conservatism and a scru- 
pulous respect for treaty obligations, holding 
that each nation is the best, and ought to be 
the sole, judge of the form of Government most 
conducive to its peace and prosperity. 



CHAPTER XL 

The line of demarcation between the two 
great political organizations, existing mainly in 
the North and in the South, or, more accu- 
rately, dividing the political opinions of the 
North and South, may be drawn on the cardi- 
nal question of construing the Constitution of 
the United States. The one has ab initio 
sought to enlarge the powers of the General 
Government, to consolidate power and au- 
thority in Washington, to reduce the States 
to a position of inferiority and subordination. 
This end has been sought by magnifying 
the dignity and powers of the one Gov- 
ernment and minifying those of the others. 
By construing liberally all granted powers, 
by covering under implication whatever was 
desired or needed, by making " general wel- 
fare and common defence,** which were 
designed as terms of description or lim- 
itation, substantive and distinct grants, by 
denying to the States all right of ultimate 
interpretation or resistance, by making the 
Supreme Court — a mere part or agency of 
the Federal Government — the final arbiter not 
merely of judicial cases, but of all matters of 
constitutional controversy, by successive and 

134 



THE SOUTHERN STATES. 1 35 

repeated usurpations, by unforgetting, unremit- 
ting purpose to draw into the vortex or grasp 
of Federal power all powers incident to any Gov- 
ernment, — by such means, the Constitution has 
practically ceased to be any restraint upon ex- 
ecutive, legislative, or judicial action. In com- 
mon parlance and in falsification of all previous 
history, the Government at Washington is 
spoken of and regarded as the creator of the 
States, as the fountain of all political authority, 
as the protector of all rights of person, proper- 
ty, and liberty/ The Union is worshiped as 
antedating the States, as a fetich, the object of 
supreme idolatry, a distinct substantive thing, 
instead of a consequence ; and Wolsey speaks 
of it, '' as something higher and greater than 
the separate States created by the Consti- 
tution." * Sectionalism, self-aggrandizement, 
avarice, cupidity, ambition, use of government 
partnership in business, appropriation of 
national revenues for individual benefit, and for 
doing what legitimately belongs to States, mu- 
nicipahties, and local communities, have helped 
to delude patriotic and unsuspecting people, 
and to pervert utterly the character and original 
purposes of the Union. Fallacies and false- 

1 Reconstruction, by Charles G. Loring, published in 1866, 
has these novel statements : " The people of the United States 
was the grantor, and the several States respectively were the 
grantees, of that right," that is, the right of representation in 
Congress. " State rights and powers are such, and such only, 
as were granted, defined, or recognized by the Constitution." 

" Page 251. 



136 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

hoods have been interwoven into pa-rty plat- 
forms and political theories, and substituted for 
incontrovertible historical facts. A member of 
Congress, in 1891, gravely proclaims to a party 
convention : *' We took the old Constitution, 
defective as it was — made away back, more 
than a hundred years ago, made in the dim 
light of that age, made out of the compromises 
of those days of political turmoil and anxiety,-^ 
and have built upon that foundation the mag- 
nificent structure that we now call the Consti- 
tution of the United States." Flexibility and 
pliancy of organic law, adaptation to historic 
life, may be desirable, as the admirers of the 
British Constitution contend, but that is not the 
theory of our written Constitution. That the 
organic law should be the true expression of the 
organic life, the prompt reflection of the deliber- 
ate will of the people, may be true, but the ques- 
tion is, How is that will to find authorized ex- 
pression ? By the prescribed mode of amend- 
ment, or by a departmental interpretation of 
the supposed utterance of a popular election ? 
There are grave treatises on the unwritten Con- 
stitution, as if such an absurdity could exist 
under our form of Government. Constitutional 
rights are gravely asserted to be the result of a 
process of political evolution, and limitations 
are occasioned, or removed, by the influence of 
public opinion, or the demands of private in- 
terests. There has been a silent expansion of 
the powers of Congress, the Executive, and the 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 37 

Judiciary, through which checks and balances 
of the written instrument have been destroyed ; 
and these usurpations are justified by a sup- 
posed or an asserted harmony with pubhc senti- 
ment. Sovereign power is defined by one 
author, a professor in a law school, as '' the ag- 
gregation of individuals who now possess the 
supreme power of the land." *' The people 
possess the political power, and powers pro- 
hibited to the States, but neither prohibited nor 
delegated to the General Government, may be 
justly exercised by the latter." Dorrism finds 
sanction in such treatises, and lynch law, if it 
have the sanction of the multitude, is put on 
the same plane wdth formal legal enactments, 
and the Constitution becomes the embodiment 
of all possible powers. Our fathers committed to 
writing the organic law, put it into definite form 
at a given time and place, and it was adopted as 
a distinct repudiation, both of the British sys- 
tem and of unlicensed democracy. It was a care- 
ful attempt to curb popular passion, to restrain 
within defined limitations the irresponsible ac- 
tion of the multitude, to keep the Government 
within narrow and prescribed limits, and at the 
same time to provide expedients for meeting 
the needs of an advancing civilization, of an 
expanding national life, and to apply correctives 
for any demonstrated defects. Our Constitu- 
tion may be satirized by the German Von 
Holtz and some American imitators, as a 
divinity for the worship of the masses who fall 



138 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

down and adore it, but it was not the improvisa- 
tion of a moment, a hasty contrivance to meet 
an emergency ; it was the careful embodiment 
of principles long sacred to the lovers of liberty, 
the re-enactment of antecedent institutions 
which had become almost American by usage 
and precedent. 

The other party adhered to the historical fact 
that the constituent members, the creators, of 
the American Union were distinct political cor- 
porations, that the Constitution was an instru- 
ment of Government, a compact between the 
States, that it contains the full grant of surren- 
dered powers, and to that extent is supreme, 
and that it unambiguously declares that the 
great mass of undelegated powers were retained 
by the States. There are no vagrant powers 
seeking a resting-place. What was not in terms, 
or by necessary implication, granted to the 
General Government, was not in nubibiis^ or 
without a lodging-place, or floating in uncer- 
tainty, but had a certain home in the people of 
each State. Hence, in all controversies, at the 
threshold of the introduction of every measure, 
the first question confronting the legislators, 
the President, the Court, after looking into the 
Constitution for an express grant, is : Is this 
constitutional? Is this within the constitu- 
tional competency of this department of a lim- 
ited Government ? This habit, this principle, 
this right of a State, of the South, has elicited 
much satirical comment, much contemptuous 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 39 

ridicule, and has become so characteristic, that 
one rarely hears from the opposite side a refer- 
ence to the Constitution, except in general 
phrase, or a suggestion of the possibility of a 
measure transcending the restrictions of the 
fundamental law. All along the history of the 
Government one can trace the position of the 
South in harmony with the original attempt to 
make a Government of well defined powers. 

This theory is in no sense in conflict with 
proper development. To remove imperfec- 
tions, to meet exigencies, and to provide for 
natural evolution, the Constitution, by the con- 
curring action of the Federal and the State 
Governments, may be amended. The manner 
is conservative, securing full and open discus- 
sion, and preventing any hasty or furtive 
change. There is no legal road to amendment, 
except through the consent of the people, in 
the forms prescribed by the Constitution.^ 
This Constitution is not complete in itself as 
a frame of Government, is not the completed 
structure of constitutional authority and right, 
for " the States and the people thereof," with 
all their reserved rights and powers, are an 
essential part of this structure. The powers 
of the Federal Government are conferred and 
measured exclusively by the written instrument, 
which was an emanation of sovereign will, 
expressed by formal, prearranged procedure. 
Precedent cannot enlarge national authority, 

' 2 Ban., on Con., 216, 330. 



140 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

nor can prescription, as in other countries, be 
summoned to its support. A constitutional 
organism is intended to be preservative and 
protective of liberty, of local Government, and 
should be impotent to destroy freedom. 

Attempts, under the guise of a protective 
tariff, to control investments, to secure boun- 
ties, to get the benefit of Government partner- 
ship in trade, to make agriculture pay a bonus 
to manufactures, have found friends on one 
side, and opponents on the other. The same 
principles of adherence to limitations necessi- 
tated antagonism to a general system of internal 
improvements, drawing into the central mael- 
strom what was local and remote, and also to 
the furnishing of a currency, and making that 
currency a legal tender. The Independent 
Treasury scheme was largely a Southern meas- 
ure, certainly had its leading supporters in that 
section. Opposition to these enlargements of 
power was kept in subordination to a proper 
nationality. It seems impossible for some to 
comprehend that at the South there has been 
an intense loyalty and devotion to the Union 
of the Constitution. It has been uniformly 
conceded that national security in times of exi- 
gency or war, or of imminent hostility, may 
require a full use of all the resources of the 
Government, so as to be ready for an emer- 
gency. As a means of national defence, and 
protection against dangers from abroad, it might 
be expedient, and even necessary, to improve 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 14 1 

systems of internal communication, to make 
ourselves financially and, in certain manufac- 
tures, independent of alien enemies, of hostile 
Governments. This plenary power of self-pro- 
tection, of using measures to prevent our 
country from becoming dependent on another 
for its means of defence, is not our daily food, 
and does not justify or vindicate what is done 
pro hac vice as a permanent policy/ 

It is one of the commonest perversions of 
historical and ascertainable truth, that the im- 
position of tarifT burdens after the war of 18 12 
was favored by the South and resisted by the 
North. Mr. Webster, even, was led, without 
proper examination, into this inaccuracy and 
injustice. So also were Benton, Greeley, and 
others. Mr. Calhoun has been the special sub- 
ject of animadversion and of persistent efforts 
to convict him of inconsistency. He was at 
that period chairman of a committee which had 
nothing to do with the tariff. Yielding to 
urgent solicitation, he made two brief speeches 
in favor of the tariff of 1 8 16, arguing that its 
object was to raise revenue to pay off the debt 
and incidentally to aid the manufactures whose 
development was essential to national security 
in time of war. The duty was ''as a means of 
national defence and protection against dangers 
from abroad," which, at that time, were impend- 
ing. *' Laying the claims of manufactures en- 
tirely out of view, on general principles without 
' Lamar's Calhoun^ 80-83. 



142 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

regard to their interests, a certain encourage- 
ment should be tendered, at least, to our woollen 
and cotton manufactures. The failure of the 
wealth and resources of the nation necessarily 
involved the ruin of its finances and its currency. 
It is admitted by the most strenuous advocates 
on the other side that no country ought to be 
dependent on another for its means of defence ; 
that at least our musket and bayonet, our cannon 
and ball, ought to be of domestic manufacture. 
But what is more necessary to the defence of a 
country than its currency and finance. . . . 
When our manufactures are grown to a certain 
perfection, as they soon will under the foster- 
ing care of the Government, we will no longer 
experience these evils." Burning with intense 
love of country, knowing the hatred and the 
power of the enemies of the Republic, he was 
led to advocate, also, under the supreme law 
of self-preservation, a bank and an improved 
system of internal communication, and he sus- 
tained these measures by a resort "■ to that 
complete and plenary power which pertained 
to the Government as the sole and exclusive 
representative of the undivided sovereignty of 
the Republic in its relations with other nations." 
The tariff of 1 8 16 was very light as compared 
with the tariffs of 1824 and 1828. Greeley says 
"the tariff of 1828 was opposed by most of the 
members from the cotton States and by a 
majority of those from New England," and 
Benton says that Louisiana supported the tariff 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 43 

of 18 16, and that the New England States were 
against the tariff until 1828. The records of 
Congress are the only safe appeal, and they give 
the facts for this protracted dispute. In the 
Senate, South Carolina voted against the tariff 
of 1816. At the session of 181 5-16, only one 
Northern vote favored the reduction of the 
tariff on woolens from 25 to 20 cents ad valorem^ 
while Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, Vir- 
ginia, and North Carolina voted unanimously 
in the affirmative. Other votes equally signifi- 
cant showed which States wanted governmental 
discrimination for their interests, and which 
wanted merely revenue for legitimate purposes. 
The only speeches against the tariff were made 
by Southern men. On the final vote for the 
tariff of 1 8 16, Massachusetts voted for it. The 
memorials and petitions presented in its favor 
were mainly from the North. It is often 
asserted that the South advocated " protection " 
until 1824 and even until 1828. The official 
journals disprove the assertion. On the tariff 
of 1818, New England, New York, New Jersey, 
and Pennsylvania were largely in its favor. 
South Carolina opposed by a vote of 6 to i. 
North Carolina by a vote of 11 to i, and Louis- 
iana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia op- 
posed unanimously. On the tariff of 1824, 
Massachusetts and New Hampshire opposed, 
but the rest of New England, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, and New York sustained. The 
two Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, 



144 ^^^ SOUTHERN STATES 

and Louisiana voted solidly against it. In the 
nullification period the tariff was a compromise. 
In 1842 the South was largely against the pro- 
tective act of that year. In 1846 the revenue 
tariff was Southern in great measure. And the 
attempts in late years to get rid of the in- 
equalities and iniquities of the war tariffs have 
had the support of an almost undivided South.' 
Under the delusions of the so-called " Ameri- 
can system," under the temptations to use 
public revenues for local and individual benefit 
and the corruptions of '' log-rolling," the Gov- 
ernment engaged largely in making internal 
improvements with Federal revenues. Vetoes, 
party platforms, absence of constitutional 
authority, offered no obstacles, and under va- 
grant powers and the elasticity of the " general 
welfare " clause, roads have been built, rivers 

' President Cleveland voices very clearly Southern senti- 
ment : "I believe that the theories and practices which tariff 
reform antagonizes are responsible for many, if not all, of the 
evils which afflict our people. If there is a scarcity of the circu- 
lating medium, is not the experiment worth trying as a remedy 
of leaving the money in the hands of the people, and for their 
use, which is needlessly taken from them under the pretext of 
necessary taxation ? If the farmer's lot is a hard one in his 
discouraging struggle for better rewards of his toil, are the 
prices of his products to be improved by a policy which ham- 
pers trade in his best markets and invites the competition of 
dangerous rivals ? Whether other means of relief may appear 
necessary to relieve present hardships, I believe the principle 
of tariff reform promises a most important aid in their satisfac- 
tion, and that the continued and earnest advocacy of this 
principle is essential to the lightening of the burdens of our 
countrymen." 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 45 

improved, harbors opened, and nearly every- 
thing done which general or sectional needs 
and wishes have suggested. Rightly to define 
the authority of the Government in this par- 
ticular, and fix a safe or just limitation, is con- 
ceded to be a difficult problem. In 1843, 3- 
meeting was held at Memphis, and a report 
was submitted by Mr. Calhoun, and adopted, 
which placed the question on impregnable 
grounds, but the loose views of construction 
which prevail, and the advantage of having 
other people to pay for what should come out 
of one's own pockets, have left the whole 
matter without any safe controlling restrictions. 
Mr. Calhoun, in a letter to myself, never before 
published, says : "' I send you a copy of my 
Memphis report, and hope the view I have 
taken of the important subjects of which it 
treats will meet your approval. I feel assured 
that on no other can they be permanently 
settled, and that they must exercise a powerful 
disturbing influence over the regular action of 
the Government until they are settled. I am 
not surprised that some of my warm political 
friends should still entertain doubts. I have 
lived too long not to know how reluctantly the 
clearest proposition is admitted against pre- 
conceived opinions. But I have great faith 
in the final triumph of truth, and never have 
I been more certain of triumph than in this 
case. I regard the Report as one of the most 
effective States-Rights papers I ever put forth. 



146 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

and that too on a portion of the Federal Con- 
stitution heretofore the least understood. It 
draws a broad line between internal and ex- 
ternal improvements, and restricts the Federal 
Government more rigidly to those belonging 
to the external relations of the States than 
any other view ever taken. Indeed, I have 
heard no objection to the argument, as it 
relates to the improvement of the navigation 
of the Mississippi." 

The South, from her opposition to the use 
of such doubtful powers, and from being in a 
minority, has been greatly the sufferer from 
the discriminating inequalities of the Govern- 
ment.^ As the result of Federal appropriation, 

' While the South by the war was decimated in men and 
bankrupted in property, the North made money, and at the 
end of the stupendous conflict was richer than at the begin- 
ning. No hostile enemies tramped over her soil ; no armadars 
blockaded ports and threw fiery shot and shell into maritime 
cities ; currency was redundant, speculation was rife, prices 
were high. The profuse expenditure of the Government kept 
trade busy in every department, and Mr. Seward said that not 
only had the war not impoverished anybody but that it * ' had 
largely augmented the national resources." As early as July, 
1 86 1, James. A. Hamilton, writing to the Secretary of the 
Treasury, quotes from a letter of Governor Fish, " Can he live 
amid the extremists and the corruptions that have taken pos- 
session of the Government ? " and then adds : " This letter is 
filled with the most painful statements of corruption, which I 
am not at liberty to repeat. Let us have a proper Committee 
and the scoundrels will call upon the mountains to crush them ; 
I could mention names of men in the community, hitherto held 
above reproach, who have been putting thousands and tens 
of thousands in their already well filled pockets." In Decem- 
ber, 1871, Mr. Van Wyck made a report to the House of 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 147 

the North has had her harbors and rivers and 
roads and bridges and buildings, facilitating 
commerce, lessening the cost of transportation, 
increasing circulation of money, while the South, 
in these respects, has had only '' the crumbs 
which fall from the rich man's table." 

Representatives, exposing in disgraceful detail how greedy 
patriots supplied vessels, arms, stores, horses, clothing, etc., 
and by clever and atrocious swindling perpetrated gigantic 
frauds. The aggregate State revenues collected in 1892 by 
the Northern States from all sources, from real and personal 
estate — banks, railroads, licenses, and polls — were 1103,192, - 
922. In 1893, the money paid for pensions was $156,740,467, 
besides the $3,703,563 paid for soldiers' homes, of which 
the North, excluding Delaware and Missouri, received near 
$127,000,000. Not simply individuals but whole States are 
pensioners upon the Government — Illinois receiving |i 1,019,- 
932 ; Indiana, $11,703,434 ; Kansas, $7,103,003 ; Ohio, 
$17,326,682 ; Pennsylvania, $15, 177,339 ; Wisconsin, $4,- 
378,353 ; Michigan, $7,760,227 ; and Massachusetts, $6,881,- 
243. It is hardly to be wondered at that pension frauds 
are perpetuated, and all attempts to remedy or prevent them 
are traduced as disloyalty to the Union. In his Message of 
December, '93, President Cleveland says : "I am unable 
to understand why frauds in the pension rolls should not 
be exposed and corrected with thoroughness and vigor." 
Every attempt to displace men put fraudulently upon the 
rolls meets with a howl of simulated indignation, fierce 
waving of the "bloody shirt," and unstinted reproaches. The 
proposition is gravely maintained in Congress and by the 
press, that a pension is a vested right, and cannot be vitiated 
by incontestable proof of fraud in its obtainment. Subsidized 
States refuse to yield the subsidies on which they fatten. Mr. 
Putnam, in his 4th of July address before the city of Boston 
in 1893, speaks of " a pension-list swollen to uncounted and 
ever-growing millions of money, making peace more expen- 
sive and more demoralizing than war, and converting the na- 
tion's roll of honor into a sordid list of grabbers at the 
Government's money bags." 



CHAPTER XII. 

The principles, policy, and necessity of the 
South led her to rigid conservatism. A thought- 
ful scholar notes as a striking antithesis that 
" a feudal aristocracy like that of slave-holding 
Virginia produced the most pronounced and 
inveterate type of democratic politics that has 
ever existed in our party formations," and that 
after the Declaration of Independence " the 
socially aristocratic and prelatical State of 
Virginia hastened to declare religious liberty." 
One has not far to go to find solution for 
these seeming paradoxes. Purest freedom and 
strongest restraint are in entire harmony. A 
denial to the Federal Government of a right to 
resort to and use undelegated powers, and an 
insistence upon an adherence to the imposed 
limitations, naturally reacted in favor of State 
rights and home rule and the individual 
liberty of the citizen. This home rule, and 
slave-holding, and personal freedom created a 
sentiment of individualism, of self-control, of 
local Government, of opposition to interference 
of Government with individual and property 
rights, of manly, chivalrous independence, of 
family sacredness, of voluntaryism in action, of 
freedom of conscience. In the Southern States, 

148 



THE SOUTHERN STATES. 



149 



under the old system, there have been less 
yielding to popular clamor, more consistency 
in pohtical action, firmer support of public 
men, less variation from year to year in elec- 
tions, and more concern for principle than for 
mere expediency. The Northern States revised 
their constitutions, or made new ones, much 
oftener than did the Southern States. '' No 
hardier RepubHcanism," says Gladstone, '' was 
generated in New England than in the slave 
States of the South which produced so many 
of the great statesmen of America." A Justice 
of the Supreme Court says that the basis of the 
enigma of the so-called slave power lay in the 
cool, vigorous judgment and unerring sense 
applicable to the affairs and intercourse of men, 
which the Southern mode of Hfe engendered 
and fostered. The South was a barrier against 

o 

libidinous democracy. In the Revolutionary^ 
war, and the nascent, formative period of the 
Federative Republic, there were no mutinies, 
no Shay rebellions, no Arnolds, as since there 
were, up to the reconstruction period and 
later, no strikes nor labor complications. The 
great change wrought by the States in resuming 
their sovereignty, and in forming the Con- 
federate States Government, was attended by 
no anarchy, no rebellion, no suspension of 
authority, no social disorders, no lawless dis- 
turbances. Sovereignty was not, for one mo- 
ment, in suspension. Conservatism marked 
every proceeding and public act. The object 



150 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

was to do what was necessary and no more ; 
and to do that with the utmost temperance and 
prudence. St. Just, in a report to the Conven- 
tion of France in 1793, said: '' A people has 
but one dangerous enemy and that is Govern- 
ment." The seceding States, where there was 
an unparalleled universality of conviction as 
to the necessity and rightfulness of resistance, 
adopted no such absurdity. In nearly every 
instance the first steps were taken legally, in 
accordance with the will and prescribed direc- 
tion of the constituted authorities. The people 
were not remitted to brute force, or to natural 
law, or to the instincts of reason. The charters 
of freedom were scrupulously preserved. As 
in the English Revolution of 1688, and ours 
of 1776, there was no material alteration in the 
laws beyond what was necessary to redress the 
abuses that provoked the secession. No attempt 
was made to build on speculative principles. 
The effort was confined within the narrowest 
limits of historic precedent and constitutional 
right. The controversy turned on the records 
and muniments of the past. The States had 
their Governors, General Assemblies, and 
Courts ; the same electors, the same corpora- 
tions, '' the same rules for property, the same 
subordinations, the same order in the law and 
in the magistracy." The States, when as- 
sembled in council, did not make but sought 
to prevent a revolution. 

Being in the minority, having a " peculiar in- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 151 

stitution," African slavery, and schooled from 
the beginning in the States-Rights theory, the 
Southern States naturally tended to conserva- 
tism in politics, to making much of protective 
guarantees, and to holding the General Govern- 
ment within the limitations of the Constitution. 
Slavery had been recognized in the written 
compact of compromises as a basis of represen- 
tation, and by a mandate for the delivery of 
fugitives. That instrument attributed to the 
individual States the exclusive right to deter- 
mine the status of American citizenship, and of 
the freedom or slavery of the persons domiciled 
in them.^ When slaves ceased to be held at the 
North as property, " the history of the times in 
which the framework of the common Govern- 
ment was reared, the mutual concessions made 
by the parties to it, the fixed resolves as to what 
should not be surrendered from the custody of 
the States themselves," were all forgotten, the 
anti-slavery sentiment became more violent and 
aggressive, and awakened more acute apprehen- 
sions at the South.'* The Constitution, amend- 
able, as was supposed, only by prescribed and 

^ Decision of Court, delivered by Justice Nelson in the 
Dred-Scott case. " We all know, the world knows, that our 
Independence could not have been achieved, our Union could 
not have been maintained, our Constitution could not have 
been established, without the adoption of those compromises 
which recognized its continued existence, and left it (slavery) 
to the responsibility of the States of which it was the grievous 
inheritance." Winthrof s Centennial Address, p. 49. 

^ Mich. Lectures, 196. 



152 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

dilatory methods, was clung to as furnishing a 
breakwater against the mad waves of fanaticism 
and wrong, and as a security for solemnly guar- 
anteed property. It was well known from oft- 
repeated historical precedent that ofificials, even 
the most honest, are inclined to a liberal con- 
struction of their own powers, and to hostility 
to popular or community rights, but it was not 
for a long time dreamed or suspected that the 
Constitution was to be readily suspended when- 
ever it stood in the way of personal ambition, 
or party exigency, or sectional passion. The 
habit, however, of strictly construing the con- 
tract, and seeking to restrain the delegated 
powers within the defined boundaries, became 
operative as a principle and rule of action, and, 
when adverse attacks were made, consolidated 
the South into an unbroken phalanx for the 
defence of the Constitution. Prior to the crisis 
of i860 and 1865, it was a favorite method of 
political and sectional attack to ridicule South- 
ern statesmen as abstractionists. In reality 
this was a compliment, because such abstrac- 
tions imply the highest inductions of political 
philosophy, the results of the profound study of 
the science of politics, of the history of Govern- 
ments, of civil experiments under most varied 
circumstances. The student of our constitu- 
tional history will be constantly struck with the 
marked and characteristic divergence of opinion 
and action between the North and the South, 
in adherence to the Constitution and the recog- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 53 

nition of its binding force. The debates in 
Congress show constant reference on the one 
side to the Constitution, and equally constant 
ignoring or contempt, on the other. Books on 
constitutional lavv and decisions of courts show 
a studied purpose on the one side to enlarge 
the scope of Federal power and minimize the 
reserved powers and the rights of the States, 
and on the other to define closely the enumer- 
ated powers and to maintain for the States 
respectively or the people thereof the great 
residuary mass of undelegated powers. 

On no question has this contrariety of opinion 
and policy been so marked as in relation to the 
power over the territories. In 1787 was passed 
by the Congress a memorable Ordinance which 
put an immediate interdict on slavery in the 
Northwest, only a solitary vote being recorded 
against it. It was accompanied by a proviso, 
suggested more than two years before, for the 
rendition of fugitive slaves. By this agreement 
the Southern States secured in the Northwest 
territory a privilege they did not possess in the 
States. This proviso was the precursor of the 
fugitive-slave clause, imbedded the same year 
in the Constitution without a dissenting voice. 
In 1643, Articles of Confederation were formed 
by the Colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, 
Connecticut, and New Haven for mutual help. 
The Articles provided that all servants running 
from their masters should, upon demand and 
proper evidence, be returned to their masters 



154 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

and to the Colonies whence they had made their 
escape. This New England and Puritan fugi- 
tive-slave law was the first ever enacted on this 
continent. In 1 788 it was a matter of complaint 
that Florida did not return fugitive negroes from 
the United States who escaped into that Colony, 
and a committee, composed of Hamilton of New 
York, Sedgwick of Massachusetts, and Madison 
of Virginia, reported resolutions instructing the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs to address the 
Charge at Madrid and require him to apply to 
His Majesty of Spain to issue orders to his 
Governor to compel the rendition of fugitive 
slaves to any one who should be entitled to 
receive them. They added, by way of example 
and argument, ''as the States would return any 
slaves from Florida who might escape into their 
limits." North Carolina, by her deed of cession 
in 1790, the first concluded under the present 
Constitution, was careful to make reservation 
against the right of Congress to establish any 
regulation tending to emancipate slaves. In 
1798, Congress, in accepting a cession of lands 
from Georgia, volunteered to exempt them from 
the anti-slavery clause of the Ordinance of 1787, 
which antedated the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion. Every inch of this territory, fell outside 
the limits embraced in the acts of 1784 and 1787. 
Thatcher,, of Massachusetts, sought to put an 
interdict on slavery in this territory ; but his 
motion received only twelve votes.^ The idea 

' 2 Annals of Fifth Congress^ 1306. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 55 

of an equitable division of territory between 
Northern and Southern States, says Dr. Wel- 
ling, was already embedded in the political 
consciousness and moral consciousness of the 

countr}\^ 

The power of Congress over the Territories 
came up for first formal and excited discussion 
on the question of the admission of Missouri 
into the Union, when what is known as the 
"Missouri Compromise" was adopted. In 
1S19, the then Territor\' of :\Ii5souri apphed 
to Congress, in the usual form, for leave to 
form a State Constitution and Government 
with a view to admission into the Union. To^ 
a bill reported for that purpose, amendments 
were offered, making the prohibition of slaver}' 
a condition precedent to her admission to the 
Union. An agitating debate followed, engen- 
dering a fierce and dangerous sectional strife. 
The two sections were arrayed in hostile atti- 
tude ; the South in favor of the bill without the 
amendment ; the North opposed to it without 
the amendment. A compromise was offered, 
based on the ground that the provisions of the 
Ordinance of 1 787, for the Government of the 
Northwestern Territory, inhibiting slaver}', 
should be apphed to all the Territory- of Lou- 
isiana, lying north of 36^ 40', except the por- 
tion lying in the State of Missouri. This was 
an arbitrary fixing of the hne of 36' 30' parallel 
of north latitude, by which slaver}' north of that 

J Welling, 31, 32. 



156 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

line was excluded, and south of that line was 
left to be determined by the action of the 
States in framing their Constitutions. The 
Northern members embraced the proposed 
settlement. It was forced through Congress 
by the almost united votes of the North against 
a minority consisting almost entirely of mem- 
bers from the Southern States. The power 
exercised was not in any sense within the Con- 
stitution.' It was assumed in a great crisis, 
under the pressure of a supposed overwhelming 
exigency, under the influence of the principle 
that the safety of the Republic is the supreme 
law, and with a reliance upon the patriotism of 
'the people to justify the extreme medicine. 
This '' Compromise " was no compromise. 
Congress assumed and asserted the power of 
excluding property in slaves from the territory 
north of an arbitrary line, of preventing the 
common enjoyment of common territories, 
purchased or acquired by common expenditure 
of treasure and blood. It is no vindication of 
this restriction and exclusion, this ex parte 
partition, to denounce slaveholding as a sin. 
That was an adjudicated question and the right 
to hold slaves was incorporated with most 
solemn guaranties into the organic law which 
was the basis and condition of union, and is 
the sole measure of the rights, duties, and 
powers of the General Government. 

For many years the subject of slavery in the 
* Dred Scott vs. Sanford, 19 Howard, 393. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 57 

Territories did not again agitate the country, but 
the war Avith Mexico, which terminated in the 
acquisition of CaHfornia and New Mexico, was 
the occasion for a fierce sectional strife, which 
precipitated what Seward called " the irrepres- 
sible conflict," and made it painfully apparent 
that the States would not be permitted to live 
in peace, " half slave and half free." Prior to 
the treaty of peace in 1848, on a question of 
organizing civil Government for the Territories, 
David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, offered to a 
bill pending in the House an amendment 
interdicting slaver>^ in any territory which 
might be acquired from Mexico. This became 
known as " the Wilmot proviso," and was 
successively offered in House and Senate, 
until the final settlement of the whole slavery 
question. The proviso was subsequently ap- 
pHed to the territorial Government for Oregon, 
and President Polk signed the bill, accompany- 
ing his approval with a message to the House, 
stating that he approved it only because the 
whole territory was geographically north of the 
Missouri Compromise line. The South pro- 
''^^posed the extension of the " Missouri Compro- 
mise " to the Pacific, but in vain, as there was 
a fixed dominant purpose, at all hazards, to 
monopolize for the North the whole of the 
territory "belonging to the United States," 
and prevent the spread of i\frican slaver>^ 
in any direction. By the " Compromise 
measures" of 1850, the South accepted the 



158 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

admission of California as a free State and 
the prohibition of the traffic in slaves in the 
District of Columbia, coupled with what was 
supposed to be an efficient law for the recapture 
of abducted or runaway slaves. This law was, 
however, openly, flagrantly, riotously, boast- 
fully nullified by individuals, mobs, communi- 
ties, and States. This clear obligation, this 
essential part of the constitutional compact, 
was evaded, annulled, and became defunct. A 
distinguished professor in the law school of 
Harvard College said : '* The only success- 
ful nullification of the Constitution and laws of 
the United States came from Massachusetts in 
her personal liberty laws." It is a singular 
political Nemesis that Nullification and Rebel- 
lion as terms of reproach should attach to the 
South while the North has escaped any odium 
attaching to the terms, although she openly and 
successfully nullified the Constitution, and the 
flag of rebellion against the Federal compact 
and Federal laws floated over half her capitols. 
In the earlier days of the Republic there was 
no diversity of opinion as to the meaning and 
intent of the constitutional requirement. The 
Executive, Congress, Courts, Legislatures, the 
people, placed the same interpretation on it. 
No impediments were placed in the way of the 
recovery of fugitive slaves, and none denied 
the right of the master to every proper facility 
in enforcing his claim. 

A law was passed in 1793 for the delivery of 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 59 

persons held to labor escaping into another 
State, and it was not repealed until the war be- 
tween the States. When the District of Colum- 
bia was created, by cessions from Maryland and 
Virginia, and became subject to the exclusive 
jurisdiction of Congress in 1801, the existence 
of slavery was recognized and to some extent 
nationalized, Webster, vainly dreaming that ^ 

a sense of justice and of mutual interest would 
insure the faithful execution of the clauses of 
the Constitution, after it became the funda- 
mental law of the land, said in 1850 in a tone 
of pathetic dignity : " The principle of the 
restitution of runaway slaves is not objection- 
able unless the Constitution is objectionable." 

This " agreement with hell"— so designated 
by Phillips, Garrison, and other abolitionists, 
who would not take an oath to support the 
Constitution because thereby they would com- 
mit themselves to the support of, and obed- 
ience to, " a Pro-Slavery Compact "—was 
defiantly and joyously trampled under foot. 
There was no pretence of a purpose, nor the 
least conception of an obligation, to execute 
the law. Cheves said : '' The highest violation 
of the Constitution is to employ the use of its 
forms to violate its spirit," but in this matter 
there was no disguise in the deliberate, avowed, 
overt, contemptuous disregard of a constitu- 
tional requirement. The judges, or marshals, 
or Senators and officers. Federal and State, 
who had any conscientious scruples, or hesi- 



y 



l6o THE SOUTHERN STATES 

tated in the annulment of a clear mandate, 
were rudely flung aside for the most fanatical 
radicals. 

Judge Story, in the case of Prigg v. The 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, said : '' His- 
torically, it is well known that the object of 
this clause was to secure to the citizens of the 
slaveholding States the complete right and 
title of ownership in their slaves, as property, 
in every State of the Union, into which they 
might escape, from the State wherein they were 
held in servitude." '* The full recognition of 
this right and title was indispensable to the se- 
curity of this species of property in all the 
slaveholding States, and, indeed, was so vital 
to the preservation of their interests and insti- 
tutions, that it cannot be doubted^ that it consti- 
tuted a fundame7ital article^ without the adoption 
of which the Union would not have been formed. 
Its true design was to guard against the doc- 
trines and principles prevalent in the non-slave- 
holding States by preventing them from inter- 
meddling with, or restricting, or abolishing the 
rights of the owners of slaves." " The clause 
was therefore of the last importance to the 
safety and security of the Southern States, and 
could not be surrendered by them without en- 
dangering their whole property in slaves. The 
clause was accordingly adopted in the conven- 
tion by the unanimous conseftt of the framers of 
it, a proof at once of its intrinsic and practi- 
cal necessity." " The clause manifestly contem- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. l6l 

plates the existence of a positive unqualified 
right on the part of the owner of the slave, 
which no State law or regulation can in any 
way regulate, control, quaUfy, or restrain." 
Judge Baldwin, in the case of Johnson v. 
Tompkins, and others, after referring to this 
provision, said : '' Thus you see that the founda- 
tions of the Government are laid and rest on 
the right of property in slaves. The whole 
structure must fall by disturbing the corner- 
stone." Judge Story, i6 Peter 6ii, again, 
says : " Without it the Union could not have 
been formed." Judge McLean, on the author- 
ity of Chief-Justice Marshall, reiterated that 
without it " no Constitution could have been 
adopted." ' At Capon Springs, Virginia, June 
28, 185 1, Daniel Webster said : '' I do not hesi- 
tate to say and repeat that if the Northern 
States refuse wilfully and deliberately to carry 
into effect that part of the Constitution which 
respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and 
Congress provide no remedy, the South would 
no longer be bound to observe the compact. 
A bareain broken on one side is broken on all 
sides. 

Writing to a committee of New York law- 
yers in 185 1, Mr. Webster said: "In the 
North, the purpose of overturning the Govern- 
ment shows itself more clearly in resolutions 

^ 2 Curtis's Cons., 451 ; 2 Benton's Thirty Years' View, 
773 ; I Stephens's War between the States, 202 ; I Rhodes's 
History of the United States, 18. 



l62 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

agreed to in voluntary assemblies of individuals, 
denouncing the laws of the land, and declaring 
a fixed intent to disobey them. I notice that 
in one of these meetings, holden lately in the 
very heart of New England, and said to have 
been very numerously attended, the members 
unanimously resolved ' That as God is our 
helper, we will not suffer any person charged 
with being a fugitive from labor to be taken 
from among us, and to this resolve we pledge 
our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.' 
These persons do not seem to have been aware 
that the purpose thus avowed by them is dis- 
tinctly treasonable. If any law of the land be 
resisted by force of arms, or force of numbers, 
with a declared intent to resist the application 
of that law in all cases, this is levying war 
against the Government within the meaning of 
the Constitution, and is an act of treason, draw- 
ing after it all consequences of that offence." 
He conjured his fellow-citizens "to reject all 
such ideas as that disobedience to the laws 
is the path of patriotism, or treason to your 
country duty to God." 

Slavery, as a domestic institution, was, at the 
time of the Declaration of Independence, com- 
mon to all the colonies ; at the time of the adop- 
tion of the Constitution, common to nearly all 
the States. Georgia gave Gen. Anthony Wayne 
of Pennsylvania, a rice plantation in testimony 
of her regard for deliverance from British domin- 
ation, and his biographer records that at the end 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 63 

of the war the General borrowed 4000 guineas in 
order '' to stock his plantation with negroes." 
In the life of Thomas Hazard, an anti-slavery 
pioneer in Rhode Island, it is said that a thou- 
sand slaves were held in the county where he 
lived, very many of them by his relatives, some 
of whom were Guinea slave-traders. 

In Mrs. Y.2.x\€^ CiLstoms and Fashio7is in Old 
New Ejtglajid, it is stated that Rev. Peter 
Thatcher bought an Indian girl for ten pounds, 
and, a "very kindly gentleman and good Chris- 
tian" as he was, " took a good walnut stick and 
beat her " until she promised to offend no more. 
Burdened in their consciences, the owners ex- 
changed Indian slaves for negro slaves. A 
French refugee wrote home: "You may also 
here own negroes and negresses, and there is 
not a house in Boston, however small may be 
its means, that has not one or two." Mrs. 
Earle says : " I have never seen in any South- 
ern newspapers advertisements of negro sales 
that surpass in heartlessness and viciousness the 
advertisements of our New England papers of 
the 1 8th century. Negro children were sold by 
the pound as other merchandised New Eng- 
landers were willing to buy slaves, in order that 
" the poor heathen might be brought up in a 
Christian land." One respectable elder in New- 
port, whence the slavers set sail, was in the habit 
of giving thanks in meeting, on the next Sunday, 
after the arrival of a slaver, " because a gracious 
overruling Providence had been pleased to bring 



164 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

to this land of freedom another cargo of be- 
nighted heathen to enjoy the blessings of a 
gospel dispensation." 

The States entered into the bond of Union — 
created by the Constitution, adopted in mutual 
agreement by the separate act of each State — 
with this institution existing in its full force, 
and with provision for, and expectation of, its 
increase. The Southern States, where slavery 
had a stronger hold, were not merely accepted 
and welcomed into the Union, but were urged 
into it by the most strenuous efforts to induce 
their ratification of the Constitution. The in- 
stitution, recognized and protected in the Con- 
stitution, in the course of years and for various 
reasons, became more localized and concen- 
trated, and awakened persistent and organized 
efforts on the part of the non-slaveholding States 
to restrict it, to make it unprofitable and odious, 
and ultimately to extinguish it. It may be as 
well, just here, in as calm and unprejudiced a 
manner as possible, to present the more recent 
aspects of the slavery question from both South- 
ern and Northern standpoints, or rather to 
compare the respective claims and contentions 
of both sides prior to the war. 

In the controversy growing out of the pro- 
posed admission of Missouri, it was claimed on 
the part of the North that Congress had a right 
to impose, at discretion, what conditions it 
pleased upon a State seeking admission into 
the Union, and to require that the Constitution 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 65 

of the State should contain a provision prohib- 
iting slavery. 

When territory was acquired from Mexico, 
Congress, in organizing Governments for the 
Territories, claimed that the power to organize 
included the power of legislation for the inhibi- 
tion of slavery. A public opinion, strong and 
dominant at the North, insisted upon the exer- 
cise of all the power that was necessary to pre- 
vent the spread of slavery and " to consecrate 
the Territories to freedom." 

As an expedient to avoid the application of 
the doubtful, or denied, power of direct congres- 
sional restriction, there were introduced the 
phrase and the principle of " squatter sover- 
eignty." This was a resort to the extreme 
democratic idea that the inhabitants of, the 
first adventurers into, a Territory, in a state of 
pupilage, prior to the possession of a population 
equal to the ratio of representation in the 
House, and even before any steps were taken 
to frame a constitution, preparatory to admis- 
sion into the Union as a State, had the abso- 
lute, sovereign right to legislate on all internal 
and domestic matters and to determine for 
themselves the question of slavery. 

Another theory held by Northern statesmen 
was that slavery was the creature of local law, 
and required for its validity or legality previous 
express legislative enactment. Ancillary to 
this was the contention that Mexico having 
prohibited slavery, the lex loci of the acquired 



l66 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

Territories prevailed and accomplished freedom, 
without the intervention of Congress or of a 
Territorial Legislature. Perhaps, the most 
controlling reason for the antagonism of the 
North was the conviction, produced by litera- 
ture and violent speeches and angry agitation, 
that property in man was per se a sin, that 
slavery was " the sum of all villainies," and 
that any human compact for its protection was 
'' a covenant with death, an agreement with 
hell," void in itself, incapable of imposing 
obligations on human conscience, or creating 
any oughtness of duty, as to its observance or 
enforcement. Hence arose the doctrine of 
*' the higher law," which was that the individ- 
ual must determine, finally, for himself, irre- 
spective of society and Government, as to the 
obligatoriness of law and the duty of personal 
obedience to its injunctions. Mr. Seward said : 
*' There is a higher law than the Constitution 
which regulates our authority over the domain. 
Slavery must be abolished and we must do it." 
Others formulated their creed into this sentence, 
"■ The times demand and we must have an 
anti-slavery Constitution, an anti-slavery Bible, 
and an anti-slavery God." As slavery polluted 
the land where it existed, corrupted and cursed 
the Government which tolerated it, no human 
power had the right to extend it to a soil un- 
stained by it, and in the discharge of duty, as 
an officer, or as a private citizen, every one 
must heed and give scope to his own peculiar 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 6/ 

speculative opinions, to the admonitions of his 
conscience, irrespective of the commands of 
the supreme civil law, the decisions of highest 
judicial tribunals, or of the rights and claims of 
others. Mr. Edmund Quincy thus voiced the 
idea of his school : '' For our own part we have 
no particular desire to see the present law 
repealed or modified. What we preach is not 
repeal, not modification, but disobedience." A 
reverend and active abolition agitator said : 
*' The citizen of a Government tainted with 
slave institutions may combine with foreigners 
to put down the Government." 

The opinions of the South as to their rights 
under the Constitution were diametrically op- 
posite. Mr. Calhoun's resolutions, introduced 
into the Senate on 19th of February, 1847, 
in clear and concise language expressed the be- 
lief of his section as to the nature and character 
of our own system of Government and the 
equal rights of the States in the Territories. 

''Resolved — That the territories of the United 
States belong to the several States composing 
this Union, and are held by them as their joint 
and common property. 

''Resolved — That Congress, as the joint agent 
and representative of the States of this Union, 
has no right to make any law or do any 
act whatever, that shall directly, or by its effects, 
make any discrimination between the States 
of this Union, by which any of them shall be 
deprived of its full and equal right in any terri- 



1 68 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

tory of the United States, acquired or to be 
acquired. 

''Resolved — That the enactment of any law, 
which should directly, or by its effects, deprive 
the citizens of any of the States of this Union 
from emigrating with their property into any of 
the Territories of the United States, will make 
such discrimination and would, therefore, be a 
violation of the Constitution, and the rights of 
the States from which such citizens emigrated, 
and in derogation of that perfect equality 
which belongs to them as members of the 
Union, and would tend directly to subvert the 
Union itself. 

" Resolved — That, as a fundamental principle 
in our political creed, a people, in forming a 
constitution, have the unconditional right to 
form and adopt the Government which they 
may think best calculated to secure liberty, 
prosperity, and happiness, and that in confor- 
mity thereto no other condition is imposed by 
the Federal Constitution on a State, in order 
to her admission into this Union, except that 
its constitution be republican, and that the 
imposition of any other by Congress would not 
only be a violation of the Constitution, but in 
direct conflict with the principle on which our 
political system rests." 

The Southern States denied that Congress 
could do as it pleased, upon the subject of 
slavery or any other subject, in the Territories 
or elsewhere. Congress has no absolute power 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 69 

whatsoever, nor any power of any description, 
except such as is specifically delegated, or is 
necessary and proper to put granted powers 
into execution. The exclusion of slavery from 
the Territories is maintainable only by denying 
that the Federal Government is one of specific 
power — that it is a Government of which the 
States are the constituents — and that Congress 
holds its powers as delegated, trust powers. 
The South held that the General Government 
had no right to restrict slavery, or to extend it, 
no more than to abolish or establish it ; nor 
any right to distinguish between the domestic 
institutions of one State, or section, and another, 
in order to favor the one and discourage the 
other. As the Federal representative of each 
and all of the States, it is bound to show, within 
the sphere of its powers, equal and exact justice 
and favor to all. What was insisted upon was 
that as slaveholders they should not, on that 
account, be disfranchised of a privilege, pos- 
sessed by all others, citizens and foreigners, 
without discrimination as to character or color. 
'' Ours is a Federal Government — a Government 
in which not individuals but States, as distinct 
sovereign communities, are the constituents. 
To these as members of the Federal Union the 
Territories belonged, and they are hence de- 
clared to be Territories belonging to the United 
States. The States then are joint owners. It 
is conceded by all writers on the subject that 
in all such Governments their members are all 



170 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

equal — equal in rights and equal in dignity.' 
They also concede that this equahty constitutes 
the basis of such Government, and that it can- 
not be destroyed without changing their nature 
and character.'' Exclusion from Territories was 
resisted, as in derogation of the equality of the 
members of the Federal Union, and as sinking 
the South to an inferior and subordinate condi- 
tion. The South asserted her right to an equal 
participation in the Territories and in all public 
property. This right rested impregnably on 
the equality of the States ; at the formation of 
the Government they were equals in dignity 
and right, and nothing had occurred since to 
deprive them of that equality. On that equal- 
ity the Constitution and the Union rested and 
could not be destroyed by the exercise of any 
power which was derived by implication from 
the terms of the Constitution. In other words, 
said Senator Berrien of Georgia, an implied 
power could not destroy an elementary princi- 
ple of the very Constitution from which it is ' 
derived. 

As to the doctrine that slavery existed by 
force of positive law and, consequently, could 
only exist within the limits of the State enact- 
ing that law, it was replied that slavery had 
existed within every one of the British Ameri- 
can Colonies without being sustained by statute. 

^ Genesee Chief vs. Fitzhugh, 12 Howard, 443. 
^ Address of Southern delegates in Congress, signed by 
fifteen Senators and thirty-two Representatives. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. I /I 

" Statute laws can be found regulating a pre- 
existing slavery, but statute laws cannot be 
found authorizing its introduction." Property 
in slaves did not stand on a ground different 
from any other description of property. " The 
relation of master and servant was one of the 
first and most universal forms in which property 
existed. It is so ancient that there is no record 
of its origin." 

As to the excluding effect of the Mexican 
law, it was maintained that, propria vigor e^ '' the 
moment the Territory became ours, the Con- 
stitution passes over and covers the whole with 
all its provisions, which, from their nature, are 
applicable to Territories, carrying with it the 
joint authority and sovereignty of each and all 
the States of the Union, and sweeping away 
every Mexican law incompatible with the 
rights, property, and relations of citizens of the 
United States ; without regard to what State 
they belong to, or whether it be situated in the 
Northern or the Southern section of the Union. 
The citizens of all have equal rights of protec- 
tion in their property, relations, and persons 
in the common Territories of each and all the 
States. The same power that swept away all 
the laws of Mexico which made the Catholic re- 
ligion the exclusive religion of the country, and 
which let in the religion of all denominations ; 
which swept away all the laws prohibiting the 
introduction of property of almost every descrip- 
tion, some absolutely, and others under the con- 



1/2 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

dition of paying duties, and letting them in duty 
free, until otherwise provided for, swept that 
which abolished slavery and let in slaves. No 
distinction can be made between it and any 
other description of property or thing, con- 
sistently with the Constitution and the equal 
rights of the several States of the Union and 
their citizens." 

The practice of the Government in reference 
to the Territories has been uniform with only 
slight departures. The territorial condition 
remaining, the laws of Congress governed. 
Territorial Governments were organized, and 
the officers were appointed by the Government 
of the United States, and the inhabitants of 
the territory were under legislative bodies, 
whose acts were subject to the revision of Con- 
gress, and had validity only from the actual or 
presumed consent of Congress. This state of 
things continued until the territorial authority 
applied to Congress to permit the inhabitants 
to form a constitution and Government pre- 
paratory to admission into the Union. Ordi- 
narily, Congress passed an act fixing all the 
preliminaries — time and place of holding the 
convention, qualification of voters, establish- 
ment of boundaries, etc. Such an act pro hac 
vice withdraws the sovereignty of the United 
States, and leaves the inhabitants of the in- 
choate State as free as were the original States 
to form their constitution and Governmicnt. 
*' At this stage the inhabitants of the Territory 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 73 

became for the first time a people, in legal and 
constitutional language. Prior to this they 
were by the old Acts of Congress called inhabi- 
tants, and not people." ' Permission being 
given to organize and form a State, the consti- 
tution and the State derive their authority from 
the people, and not from Congress. The Ter- 
ritory emerges from dependence and pupilage 
into an equality with the sisterhood of States. 
The " inhabitants," the pioneers, had no right 
nor authority to constitute a State, to ordain 
an organic law, to fix boundaries, and claim any 
extent of territory they pleased. 

In 1856, the Supreme Court of the United 
States made the famous Dred Scott decision,^ 
in which it was held that the Missouri Compro- 
mise Act of 1820, prohibiting slavery in the 
territories acquired from France north of ^6° 
30^ was void, and that Congress had no power 
to make such prohibition, and further, that a 
free negro of the African race, whose ancestors 
were brought to this country and sold as slaves, 
was not and could not be a citizen within the 
meaning of the Constitution. Chief-Justice 
Taney, who delivered the opinion of the court 
— six out of nine judges concurring, — has been 
held up to reprobation and scorn, pilloried 
alongside of Jeffries and all judicial monsters, 
and made the synonym for all possible ofificial 
and personal corruption, usurpation, and vil- 

^ Calhoun's speech, March 4, 1850. 
^19 Howard. 



174 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

lainy. No language has been too severe, no 
epithet has sufficed, to express the sectional 
condemnation of as pure and upright and able 
a judge as ever adorned judicial annals. An 
eminent lawyer of Philadelphia speaks of his 
ability to present an argument with breadth of 
view, intelligent discrimination, with the nicest 
precision of reasoning, and the fullest and 
fairest examination of the grounds upon which 
the opposite argument is based. " His opinions 
are distinguished by their clearness, learning, 
directness, and firm grasp of the points dis- 
cussed, and, when dealing with constitutional 
subjects, for sound and weighty reasoning, 
thorough acquaintance with the political history 
of the country, and for the close bearing of all 
contained in it upon the question under exami- 
nation." Justice Curtis said of him, that his 
power of subtle analysis exceeded that of any 
man he had ever known. S. Teackle Wallis 
says of him that to question his integrity is 
enough to beggar the resources of falsehood. 
The decision convulsed the North, aroused it 
into fury, was seized on with avidity and un- 
scrupulousness, and perverted and maligned to 
fire the Northern heart and expel the party in 
power. It is still discussed with passion and 
hatred, and misrepresented as to language, 
argument, and effect. Public men, the press, 
histories, speak of it '' with a degree of igno- 
rance as to the real points ruled in it, 
equal to " the blind partisanship and sec- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 175 

tional hate exhibited. The calm, unprejudiced 
judgment of the future, remote from the pas- 
sions and interests of the present, will rightly 
estimate Taney's fidelity to the Constitution, 
- his ideal of the character of American citizen- 
ship " and his courageous '^ following in the 
path so often trod by him before, in attributing 
to the individual States the exclusive right to 
determine judicially the status of freedom, or 
of slavery, of a person found domiciled in 

them." ' ^ . ' 

Those who would convert our Federal, con- 
stitutional, representative Republic into a con- 
solidated Government of the aggregate popula- 
tion refer to the Supreme Court as the ultimate 
arbiter in the decision of political as well as of 
judicial questions, and as the tribunal on which 
all can rely, because of its great wisdom and 
impartiality. The power of judicial re lef 
against unconstitutional action is a peculiar 
and beneficent provision of our American 
system, which cannot be too highly appreci- 
ated One trained under the English system of 
jurisprudence can scarcely conceive that a court 
should exercise the prerogative of declaring null 
and void a law having the approval of the legis- 
lative and executive departments of the Govern- 
ment. In fact, there is not in Europe a court 
which has authority to pass on the constitu- 
tionality of laws. Our Supreme Court has not, 
probably, been surpassed in ability and integrity 

1 Mich. Lectures, 198. 



176 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

by any judiciary of the world, and no South- 
erner can repress a sentiment of honest pride 
that his section for sixty-two years should have 
furnished the Chief Justices for that august 
body. It is not needful, however, to shut our 
eyes to the fact, that there is a natural tendency 
in all officers to enlarge their own powers, and 
that there is nothing- in judicial station to 
exempt one from that infirmity, or from his 
political bias. The interpretation of the Con- 
stitution by judges is to be sought not unfre- 
quently in their party affiliations and in the 
history of the times. Courts are sometimes 
dominated as much by the spirit of party as 
are the other departments. Opinions are some- 
times disfigured by abusive terms, and vituper- 
ation is substituted for reason and law.' Judg- 
ments can be sometimes traced to political 
views, party relations and prejudices. Political 
affinities and convictions color constitutional 
decisions, and the judgment of the court often 
illustrates how much the judicial opinion de- 
pends on the men who happen to be on the 
bench. 

Besides, the court may assume or usurp 
jurisdiction not allowed by the Constitution, 
and there is no power in the Federal Govern- 
ment to gainsay it. There is nothing to prevent 

^ In 3 Black, 673, a justice, in delivering his opinion, sneers 
at the alleged unconstitutionality of executive action, and, to 
make his contempt conspicuous, prints the word '^unconsti- 
tutional !!! '' in italics with three marks of surprise. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION: 1 77 

them from interpreting as they may please, and 
thus a single department of the Government 
may deny to the others powers which they 
really possess, or confer powers never conceded. 
Every one knows what a system of laws has 
been built up by the legislation of courts. In 
specious verbiage may be found the bacillus of 
all sorts of licentious conceptions which will 
later on take on form and pernicious activity. 
The modern assumption of equity jurisdiction 
in the case of railroad receiverships might, on 
plausible grounds, be so augmented as to enable 
judges to take into their hands the executive 
administration of the entire railroad system. 
Judicial decisions upon constitutional interpre- 
tations have made a constitution very different 
from that of the Fathers, and all decisions on 
constitutional law should therefore be held 
under the scrutiny of jealous vigilance. 

What has been said of the excitement and 
bitterness and flagrant injustice engendered by 
the Dred Scott decision illustrates the impo- 
tence of mere constitutional restraints. The 
court was overruled by the turbulent passion 
of the "■ fierce democratic." The Supreme 
Court of Wisconsin pronounced the fugitive- 
slave law unconstitutional and void, and 
resisted its administration by the Federal 
authorities.- 

The Legislatures of fourteen States enacted 
laws which nullified the Acts of Congress, 
passed in pursuance of the clear mandate of 



178 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

the Constitution/ A judgment of the Supreme 
Court, according to the clearest forms of judi- 
cial procedure, was audaciously and insolently 
set at naught, and the Legislature of a State, 
whose officers had been guilty of a lawless 
defiance of constitutional authority, denounced 
the act of the highest judicial tribunal known 
to the law as an act of arbitrary power, and 
therefore null and void. The Supreme Court 
of the United States, no one dissenting, over- 
ruled the State decision, but the voice of the 
law was no longer heard in the land, and the 
Federal Government was browbeaten and de- 
feated. One of the most striking demonstra- 
tions of the incompetency of the court to 
preserve constitutional restrictions is to be 
found in the legal-tender cases. In the case of 
Hepburn vs. Griswold, 8 Wallace, the court 
decided that Congress had no power to make 
greenbacks a legal tender in payment of debts. 
According to the former rules of interpretation 
no lack of power could be clearer, but that was 
no obstacle to those in power, and was not 
allowed to defeat the clamors of interest. 
Judges, whose opinions were known, were 
added to the Court for the purpose of reversing, 
and what, a few days before, was unconstitu- 
tional, was made the law of the land by judicial 
construction. What is to prevent the enlarge- 
ment of the court in future, when a change on 

^ Greeley's A me7' I can Conjlict^ 221. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 179 

constitutional questions is to be effected, when 
certain desired ends are to be accomplished ? 

The Supreme Court also legitimated the 
creation of a new State from the territory of 
another State in flagrant disregard of a clear 
constitutional inhibition, and of the known will 
of the spoliated State. 

In addition to the action of the States, nulli- 
fying a law of Congress, and proclaiming their 
determination to expunge from the Constitu- 
tion one of its essential stipulations, there 
occurred, on the i6th of October, 1859, ^^ in- 
vasion of the Commonwealth of Virginia by a 
band of armed conspirators, who seized upon 
Harper's Ferry, and were proceeding to execute 
a deliberately concocted plan to arouse the 
negroes to insurrection, to plunder and murder, 
and to overthrow the Government of one of the 
original thirteen States. Such an act of un- 
paralleled audacity, of open treason, of levying 
war against a State of the Union, should have 
aroused universal execration. On the contrary, 
Victor Hugo pleaded for the remission of the 
just punishment of the traitor, and Hughes, in 
his Manliness of Christ, places John Brown 
almost on a level with the Son of God. Ed- 
ward Everett and others in Boston had the 
courage and patriotism to denounce the dia- 
boHcal purpose of the conspirators, but the 
fanatical leader has been canonized at the 
North, and his name heads the roll of martyr- 
ology. 



l8o THE SOUTHERN STATES 

During the whole period from 1789 to i860 
the predominant sentiment of the South was 
that of intense loyalty to the Union. For the 
flag, the Union's symbol in peace and war, it 
had made incessant and willing sacrifices. The 
strong, pertinacious defence of the Constitution,' 
the resistance to encroachments upon it, were 
the best and only means for the preservation 
and perpetuity of the Union. State interposi- 
tion, as advocated in 1828-1832, was in no 
sense a disunion measure ; it was designed to 
arrest the operation of oppressive and unconsti- 
tutional taxation, until the sober second 
thought of the people of the States could be 
consulted, and the creators of the Constitution, 
in the most legitimate and authoritative man- 
ner, could decide whether the questioned 
power had been, or should be conferred. It was 
an appeal to a convention of the States, the 
paramount power in our federative system, "the 
most august and imposing embodiment of po- 
litical authority known to the American system 
of Government." What the South has uni- 
formly held is that the best preservative of the 
Union is a faithful adherence to the Constitu- 
tion, and that to vest in Congress, in the Presi- 
dent, in the Supreme Court, the right of 
determining finally and exclusively the extent 
of powers delegated to the Government, is in- 
compatible with the integrity and the rights of 
the States, and the limitations of the Constitu- 
tion. It seems, says an able lawyer, a truism 



OF THE AMERICAN- UNION. l8l 

too palpable for argument, that rights of the 
States are as incapable of violation without a 
violation of the Constitution as rights delegated 
to the General Government. The United 
States is sovereign as to all matters delegated 
to it by the Constitution ; it is without any 
sovereignty, jurisdiction, power, or function as 
to all matters not placed within its power by 
the Constitution. The topics which lie outside 
of national legislation greatly exceed the num- 
ber to which the power of State legislation does 
not extend/ State power and jurisdiction em- 
brace the relations of husband and wife, parent 
and child, guardian and ward, master and ser- 
vant, and can arrest, imprison, try, condemn, 
and execute citizens of the United States 
infringing State laws. The people of each 
State compose a State, having its own Govern- 
ment, and endowed with all the functions 
essential to separate and independent existence, 
and without the States in Union there could 
be no such political body as the United States. 
The preservation of the States and the main- 
tenance of their Governments are as much 
within the care and design of the Constitution 
as the preservation of the Union and the main- 
tenance of the National Government.^ As 
Henry Clay said : " Our Government is not to 
be maintained, or our Union preserved, by in- 
vasions of the rights and powers of the several 

^ Mich. Lect., 244. " 7 Wallace, 700, 755. 



1 82 THE SOUTHERN STATES. 

States." Robert C. WInthrop closed his great 
Centennial Fourth of July oration, " GOD SAVE 
THESE American States."' 

* It may be pertinent to append the opinions of some distin- 
guished Northern men as to the value of States Rights. Mr. 
Bancroft says : 

" Aside of the sphere of the Federal Government, each 
State is in all things supreme, not by grace, but of right. 
This supremacy of the States in the powers which 
have not been granted is as essentially a part of the system as 
the supremacy of the General Government in its sphere. The 
States are at once the guardians of the domestic security and 
the happiness of the individual, and they are the parents, 
the protectors, and the stay of the Union. The States and 
the United States are members of one great whole ; and the 
one is as needful as the other. The powers of Government 
are not divided between them ; they are distributed ; so 
that there need be no collision in their exercise. . . . But 
for State rights the Union would perish from the paralysis of 
its limbs. The States, as they gave life to the Union, are 
necessary to the continuance of that life." 

Alexander Hamilton wrote : 

" The State Governments are essentially necessary to the 
form and spirit of the general system. With the representa- 
tive system a very extensive country may be governed by a 
confederacy of States in which the Supreme Legislature has 
only general powers, and the civil and domestic concerns of 
the people are regulated by the laws of the several States. 
State Governments must form a leading principle. They can 
never lose their powers till the whole people of America are 
robbed of their liberties." 

George Clinton used equally strong language : 

" The sovereignty of the States he considered the only 
stable security for the liberties of the. people against the 
encroachments of power." 

2 Banc, Const., 332, 343, 344. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

These principles made the Southern States 
the true defenders and friends of the Constitu- 
tion and the Union. So far from being revolu- 
tionary, their doctrines were regarded as the 
only solid foundation of our system and of the 
Union itself. The doctrine which denied to 
the States " the right of protecting their re- 
served powers, and which would vest in the 
Government (it matters not through what 
department) the right of determining exclu- 
sively and finally the powers delegated to it, 
is incompatible with the sovereignty of the 
States, if the Constitution itself be considered 
the basis of the Federal Union." 

When the election of Mr. Lincoln became an 
established fact, notwithstanding the formal 
legality of the election, it developed a section- 
alism so pronounced and powerful as to be 
able and willing to organize the Federal Gov- 
ernment apart from and irrespective of all 
Southern support. The Southern States, as 
previously and most solemnly announced, re- 
garded the election as involving necessarily 
the perversion of the Government from its 
originally limited character, and the overthrow 
of all those guarantees which furnished the 

183 



184 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

slightest hope of equahty and protection in the 
" irrepressible conflict " thus precipitated upon 
the minority section. 

It is often said as conclusive of rash impetu- 
osity, or of a predetermination to dissolve the 
Union, that the South did not wait for some 
overt act of wrong before entering upon the 
fatal step of secession. It may seem to have 
been imprudent and precipitate, viewed in the 
subsequent experience of subjugation and 
abolition, but that same experience is the con- 
firmation of the apprehensions entertained and 
the proof that the South was not blind as to 
what was the purpose, nay, the inevitable 
logical result, of the triumph of sectional and 
hostile anti-slavery organization. What was 
the South to suppose had been the meaning 
and the motive of the nullification acts of all 
the Northern States, of the bitterness of hostil- 
ity towards her institution, the canonization of 
John Brown, and the growth and dominancy of 
the abolition sentiment? In 1840 the Aboli- 
tionists were a despised sect, with nearly as 
little favor in Boston as in Charleston. In 1844 
and 1848 the Liberty and Free Soil parties 
had candidates for the Presidency ; in 1856 the 
Republican party had absorbed the Whig party 
at the North and carried eleven States, and in 
i860 it was triumphant in the executive and 
legislative departments of the General Govern- 
ment. 

When it appeared evident to the Southern 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 8$ 

States that there was utter hopelessness in any 
effort to conserve the Constitution and the equal- 
ity of the States, or to have them recognized in 
the administration of Federal affairs, the sole 
ahernative was submission to, or acquiescence 
in, the revolution which had been wrought, or an 
effort to secure the benefits of the Government 
as originally constituted. Shall the Constitu- 
tion and the rights of the States be maintained 
under new relationships, and a Federal consti- 
tutional union of States be preserved, or shall 
the existence of a nation be maintained, irre- 
spective of the Constitution and the autonomy 
and the parity of the States ? Stripped of all 
extraneous matter, that was the naked issue 
submitted to the Southern Sj;ates. The lead- 
ing idea of those engaged in secession, and m 
the formation of the Confederacy, is presented 
in a condensed form by Justice Lamar in his 
oration on John C. Calhoun : 

"The American Union is a Democratic 
Federal RepubUc, a political system com- 
pounded of the separate Governments of the 
several States and of one common Government 
of all the States, called the Government of the 
United States. Each was created by written 
constitution, those of the particular States by 
the people of each acting separately, and that 
of the United States by the people of each m 
its sovereign capacity, but acting jointly. The 
entire powers of Government are divided be- 
tween the two-those lodged in the General 



1 86 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

Government being delegated by specific and 
enumerated grants in the Constitution ; and all 
others not delegated being reserved to the 
States respectively, or to the people. The 
powers of each are sovereign, and neither 
derives its powers from the other. In their 
respective spheres neither is subordinate to the 
other, but co-ordinate, and being' co-ordinate, 
each has the right of protecting its own powers 
from the encroachments of the other, the two 
combined forming one entire and perfect 
Government. The line of demarcation be- 
tween the delegated powers to the Federal 
Government and the powers reserved to the 
States is plain, inasmuch as all the powers 
delegated to the General Government are ex- 
pressly laid down, and those not delegated are 
reserved to the States unless specially pro- 
hibited. 

" The greater part of the powers delegated to 
the General Government relate directly or in- 
directly to two great divisions of authority : 
the one pertaining to the foreign relations of 
the country ; the other of an internal character, 
and pertaining to the exterior relations of the 
States, the purposes for which the Constitution 
was formed being power, security, and respect- 
ability without, and peace, tranquillity, and 
harmony within." 

The action of Congress, of Northern States 
and Legislatures, in direct and hostile contra- 
vention of the theory of Government which 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 18/ 

had been maintained consistently from the 
beginning of the Federal Union, the utterances 
of newspapers, books, party conventions, ju- 
dicial decisions, the increasingly virulent public 
sentiment, adverse to constitutional guarantees 
and the equality of the States, culminating in 
the hostile and treasonable incursion of an 
organized band into Virginia, and in the elec- 
tion of a President by a purely sectional vote, 
satisfied the Southern States that the Union 
could not permanently exist, composed of 
" free and slave States," that the Constitution 
would no longer furnish any protection to a 
minority, and that the rights of the States 
were contingent upon and determinable by the 
popular will of a dominant and a passionate 
section. Originally, the States antedated the 
Union, and were, by separate action, a suf- 
ficient number spontaneously concurring, the 
creators of the Union and stood on a plane of 
absolute political equality. In course of time 
new States, carved out of common territory, 
had their territorial organizations, their enabling 
acts, their school funds, their admission into 
the Union, through the will of the Central 
Government at Washington, and they thereby 
seemed unable to realize that Iowa was as 
Massachusetts and California as New Jersey. 
"In 1789, the States, were the creators of the 
Federal Government ; in 1861, the Federal 
Government was the creator of a large major- 
ity of the States. In 1789, the Federal Gov- 



1 88 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

ernment had derived all the powers delegated 
to it by the Constitution from the States ; in 
1 86 1, a majority of the States derived all their 
powers and attributes as States from Congress 
under the Constitution. In 1789, the people 
of the United States were citizens of States 
originally sovereign and independent ; in i86r, 
a vast majority of the people of the United 
States were citizens of States that were origi- 
nally mere dependencies of the Federal Govern- 
ment, which was the author and giver of their 
political being." ' The new States were slow 
or unwilling to believe that they were on a 
plane of perfect equality with any of the 
original eleven who began the Government. 
Then grew up the notion of an aggregate 
people, of an unrestricted democracy, of the 
absolute right of a popular majority, whenever 
existing, however ascertained, to rule without 
check or restraint, independent of constitu- 
tional limitation or State interposition. The 
will of the majority, for the time being, be- 
comes vox Dei, and must be immediately exe- 
cuted, irrespective of law or constitution. 

These two adverse theories clashing and 
making an " irrepressible conflict," war was in- 
evitable. It is not creditable to our civilization, 
to our political philosophy, to our Christianity, 
that differences of opinion, not sudden, not the 
outcome of recent causes, but contemporaneous 
with the formation and adoption of the Con- 

' Lamar on Calhoun, 70. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION, 1 89 

stitution, running along parallel with the whole 
history of the Union, should not have been 
capable of settlement by some other arbitra- 
ment than arms, which logically settles nothing 
except the avoirdupois of numbers and superi- 
ority of munitions. Senator Hammond of 
South Carolina closed his speech on the 
Kansas Bill, in 1858, with words of solemn 
emphasis and historical accuracy : " You 
complain of the rule of the South ; that has 
been another cause that has preserved you. 
We have kept the Government conservative to 
the great purposes of the Government. We 
have placed her and kept her upon the Consti- 
tution and that has been the cause of your 
prosperity. The Senator from New York says 
that is about to be at an end ; that you intend 
to take the Government from us ; that it will 
pass from our hands. Perhaps what he says is 
true ; it may be ; but do not forget — it can never 
be forgotten — it is written on the brightest page 
of human history that we took our country in 
her infancy, and after ruling her for sixty out of 
seventy years of her existence, we shall sur- 
render her to you without a stain upon her 
honor, boundless in her prosperity, incalculable 
in her strength, the wonder and admiration of 
the world. Time will show what you will make 
of her ; but no time can diminish our glory or 
your responsibility." 

South Carolina called a convention and re- 
pealed her ordinance of 1788, which ratified the 



190 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

Constitution of the United States, and thus she 
dissolved the union subsisting between her and 
the other States united with her under the com- 
pact entitled the Constitution of the United 
States of America. Let it be remembered that 
this action of South Carolina — and the same 
can be said of all the seceding States — was not 
the exercise of a novel claim. It was not the 
unexpected and arbitrary exercise of a power 
'' trumped up " for the occasion. From the very 
origin of the Union in 1789 to i860, by jurists, 
statesmen, and political writers, the right of a 
State, for just cause of which she was the sole 
judge, to secede, had been argued and asserted 
a thousand times. In the Convention which 
framed the Constitution, in every administra- 
tion, in the origin and history of parties, the 
most widely divergent views of the character of 
our Government had been proclaimed and dis- 
cussed, and it was universally known that at the 
South there was a general concurrence of opinion 
as to the federative character of our Government 
and the right of each State, in the last resort, 
to judge of infractions of the compact and of 
the mode and measure of redress. Every well 
informed citizen knew that a large section of a 
large party and several of the States uniformly 
and earnestly claimed that under our federative 
system of Government a State, in the exercise 
of its sovereignty, had the ultimate right to 
withdraw from the Union into which it had vol- 
untarily entered. Therefore, when South Caro- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 191 

lina seceded, as she had given frequent and 
emphatic notice of her purpose, under certain 
contingencies, to do, there was no surprise felt 
at the exercise of the alleged right. The ex- 
pediency of the act was criticised ; but no one is 
bold or ignorant enough to affirm that South 
Carolina deceived the Government or her co- 
States by resorting to a remedy or right which 
had been kept hidden in her breast. 

After the secession of South Carolina the 
States of Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, 
Louisiana, and Texas followed in quick succes- 
sion. A Congress of the seceding States, to 
meet at Montgomery, Ala., on February 4, 1861, 
had been suggested. The Congress met at the 
time and place designated. The deputies from 
the States proceeded at once to create a gen- 
eral Government by adopting a provisional 
Constitution. This wdiS pro hac vice, to prevent 
disorder and anarchy and secure co-operation. 
On the 1 8th of February Jefferson Davis was 
inaugurated as President. In the action of the 
States and of the Congress the proceedings 
were conservative and in accordance with estab- 
lished precedents for the preservation of per- 
sonal and proprietary and civil rights. The pres- 
sure for a permanent Government was strong, 
and some of the wisest and most trusted men, 
notably Mr. Stephens, seemed to be anxious to 
convince the world that secession was not caused 
by a desire to depart from the well known prin- 
ciples of our Federal Republic. On the nth 



192 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

of March, by the unanimous vote of the depu- 
ties in Congress, a permanent constitution was 
adopted, and in due time was ratified by the 
States represented, and also by Arkansas, North 
Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee. Kentucky 
and Missouri afterward had representatives in 
the permanent Congress and furnished many 
brave soldiers to the army, but their admission 
to the Confederacy was opposed by the writer 
and by others as irregular and at variance with 
the principles on which the Confederacy was 
established. 

The Americans are a constitution-making peo- 
ple. The American idea, — different from that 
of our English ancestors, to whom we owe so 
many of the chief muniments of civil and per- 
sonal liberty, — is to formulate and embody in 
organic law, having more permanence and so- 
lemnity of sanction and adoption than mere 
statute law, the foundation of government and 
the accepted principles of civil relations. In 
early Revolutionary times general principles 
were set forth in Bills of Rights. The Virginia 
Bill of Rights is a most remarkable compend of 
essential political truths. It was objected to 
the ratification of the Constitution of the 
United States, that it contained no such dec- 
laration, and the first amendments, adopted 
in 1791, and ratified by all the States but 
three, were responsive to the demand for a for- 
mal assertion of the basis of liberty and free 
institutions. The first ten were preceded by a 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 93 

preamble stating that the conventions of many 
States had, at the time of their adopting the 
Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to 
prevent misconception or abuse of its powers, 
that further declaratory and restrictive clauses 
should be added. The constitutions of the 
States were detailed plans of government, the 
practical application of the methods of carrying 
out fundamental principles, and of defences and 
barriers against the infringement of rights and 
liberties. We have had about one hundred 
and thirty constitutions, and in them we can 
see definitions of rights, divisions into depart- 
ments, assignments of separate functions, but 
we can read also the attempts to guard against 
the evils and dangers which experience has 
brought to light. 

The " long continued labor to work out the 
foundation of government " is now superfluous. 
For a thousand years every reform in govern- 
ment in England has had for its immediate 
purpose the limitation of the powers of the 
Executive. In the more recent of our State 
Constitutions we discover social, political, eco- 
nomic, and labor complexities, of which the 
founders of our first State Constitutions knew 
nothing. The department of administration, 
the responsibility of officials, the reform of civil 
service, the recognition of office as a public 
trust for the public good and not as a reward 
for partisan services, the suspicion of the un- 

trustworthiness of these in authority, the'dan- 
13 



194 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

ger of powerful corporations, these and many 
other phases of modern thought are clearly dis- 
cernible in modern constitutions. The Execu- 
tive department is not so much feared as the 
Legislative. Confidence in legislatures having 
been much lessened, the constitution-making 
bodies have imposed restrictions upon the 
law-making department to protect the people 
against overmuch or corrupt legislation. 

The Constitution of the Confederate States, 
as the instrument of government, is the most 
certain and decisive expression of the views and 
principles of those who formed it, and is entitled 
to credence and acceptance as the most trust- 
worthy and authoritative exposition of the prin- 
ciples and purposes of those who established 
the Confederate Government.' 

Excluding all reference to slavery, an exami- 
nation of the Constitution will exhibit the ani- 
mus of the Confederate States. Let it be 
premised that the Constitution was modelled on 
that of the United States and followed it with 
rigid literalness. Alabama and Georgia, in ap- 
pointing delegates to the Congress of the se- 
ceded States, placed them under restrictions to 
form a government upon the principles and 
basis of the Constitution of the United States. 
Alabama invited other States to unite with her 
in order '' to frame a government upon the prin- 

^ By the kind permission of the Philadelphia Times the sub- 
stance of an article contributed by the author in 1882 is here 
reproduced. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 1 95 

ciples of the Constitution of the United States." 
Davis, in his inaugural address, said : '^ We 
have changed the constituent parts but not the 
system of our Government. The Constitution 
founded by our fathers is that of these Con- 
federate States in their exposition of it." The 
preamble declared that the people of the Con- 
federate States, each State acting in its sover- 
eign and independent character, invoking the 
favor and guidance of Almighty God, ordained 
a Constitution to form a permanent Federal 
Government and for other purposes. The 
change in phraseology was obviously to assert 
the derivative character of the Federal Govern- 
ment and to exclude the conclusion which Web- 
ster and others had sought to draw from the 
phrase, " We, the people of the United States." 
In the Executive department, the Constitution 
provided, in accordance with the early agree- 
ment of the Convention of 1787, that the 
President should be elected for six years and 
be ineligible. A seat upon the floor of either 
House of Congress might be granted to the 
principal officer in each of the Executive de- 
partments with the privilege of discussing any 
measures appertaining to his department. The 
President was empowered to remove at pleasure 
the principal officer in each of the Executive 
departments and all persons connected with 
the diplomatic service. To give entire control 
of Cabinet officers and of foreign ministers was 
considered to be necessary for the proper dis- 



196 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

charge of the President's duties and for the 
independence of his department. All other 
civil officers could be removed when their ser- 
vices were unnecessary, or for dishonesty, ineffi- 
ciency, misconduct, or neglect of duty, but the 
removals in such cases, with the reasons there- 
for, were to be reported to the Senate, and no 
person rejected by the Senate could be reap- 
pointed to the same office during the recess of 
the Senate. The President was empowered, 
while approving portions of an appropriation 
bill, to disapprove particular items, as in other 
like cases of veto, the object being to defeat 
log-rolling combinations against the Treasury. 

Admitting members of the Cabinet to seats 
upon the floor of Congress with right of dis- 
cussion (which worked well during the brief life 
of the Confederacy), was intended to secure 
greater facility of communication betwixt the 
Executive and the Legislative departments and 
enforce upon the heads of the departments 
more direct personal responsibility. By ineligi-^ 
bility of the President and restriction of the 
power of removal, the Congress, acting as a 
convention, sought to secure greater devotion 
to public interests, freedom from the corrupt- 
ing influences of Executive patronage, and to 
break up the iniquitous spoils system which is 
such a peril to the purity and perpetuity of our 
Government. The Judicial department was 
permitted to remain substantially as it was in 
the old Government. The only changes were 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION, 1 97 

to authorize a tribunal for the investigation of 
claims against the Government, the withhold- 
ing from the Federal Courts jurisdiction of 
suits between citizens of different States, and 
the enactment of a wise provision that any 
judicial or other Federal officer, resident and 
acting solely within the limits of any State, 
might be impeached by a vote of two thirds of 
both branches of the Legislature thereof. The 
provisions in reference to the election of Sena- 
tors and Representatives and the powers and 
duties of each House were unaltered except 
that the electors of each State were required to 
be citizens, and the Senators were to be chosen 
bv the Legislatures of the State at the session 
next immediately preceding the beginning of 
the term of service. 

In reference to the general powers of Con- 
gress, some of the changes were more vital. 
The general welfare clause was omitted from the 
taxing grant. Bounties from the Treasury and 
extra compensation to contractors, officers, and 
agents were prohibited. '' A Protective tariff" 
was so far forbidden that no duties or taxes on 
importations could be laid to promote or foster 
any branch of industry. Export duties were 
allowed with the concurrence of two thirds of 
both Houses. Congress was forbidden to make 
internal improvements except to furnish lights, 
beacons, buoys, to improve harbors, and to 
remove obstructions in river navigation, and 
the cost of these was to be paid by duties levied 



198 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

on the navigation facilitated. That the objects 
might be better attained, States, with the con- 
sent of Congress and under certain other re- 
strictions, were allowed to lay a duty on the 
sea-going tonnage participating in the trades of 
the river or harbor improved. States, divided 
by rivers, or through which rivers flowed, could 
enter into compacts for improving their naviga- 
tion. Uniform laws of naturalization and bank- 
ruptcy were authorized, but bankruptcy could 
not affect debts contracted prior to the passage 
of the law. A two-thirds vote was made requi- 
site to appropriate money unless asked and 
estimated for by some one of the heads of de- 
partments. Every law must relate but to one 
subject, and that was to be expressed in the 
title. To admit new States required a vote of 
two thirds of each House, the Senate voting by 
States. Upon the demand of any three States, 
legally assembled in their several conventions, 
Congress could summon a convention to con- 
sider amendments to the Constitution, but the 
convention was confined in its action to propo- 
sitions suggested by the States making the call. 
From this explication of the permanent 
Constitution it clearly appears that the seced- 
ing States were not only satisfied with, but 
deeply attached to, the plan and principles of 
the Constitution of the United States. The 
changes, in no respect anarchical or revolu- 
tionary, were '' explanatory of the well-known 
intent " of the instrument, or remedial of evils, 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 199 

unanticipated by our forefathers, which had de- 
veloped themselves in the practical administra- 
tion of the Government. The Confederate 
Constitution was the embodiment of the State 
rights and republican construction of our or- 
ganic law. It put into the framework of the 
new Government, in clear language, what such 
men as Calhoun, Polk, Pierce, Woodbury, 
Wright, and Marcy thought was in, or ought 
to be in, the Constitution of the United States ; 
only purging it of vicious interpretations. Any 
possible infringement of popular liberty or 
State rights, any oppressive use of the taxmg 
power, was jealously guarded against. Civil 
service reform was made easy and practicable 
The ancrry controversies about tariffs, internal 
improvements, and subsidies, which have been 
so injurious and violent, were settled. The 
taxing power, used so oppressively for the 
benefit of favored sections and classes and 
the injury of the masses, was put under salu- 
tary restrictions. The money in the Treasury 
was protected against purchasable majorities 
and wicked combinations. While the General 
Government was clothed with the powers ade- 
quate for a simple and just government, the 
States maintained their autonomy and were not 
reduced to mere petty corporations. 

It may be as well to group here the provisions 
of the Constitution affecting slavery, although 
thev have now only an historical interest. In 
sharp, direct, unambiguous language, '' the im- 



200 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

portation of negroes of the African race was for- 
bidden, and Congress was required to pass laws 
effectually to prevent it." The right of transit 
or sojourn with slaves in any State was secured 
and fugitive slaves — called '^ slaves " without 
the euphemism of the old instrument — were to 
be delivered up on the claim of the party to 
whom they belonged. Congress could prohibit 
the introduction of slaves from States and 
Territories not included in the Confederacy, 
and laws impairing the right of property in 
negro slaves were prohibited. Slaves could be 
carried into any Territory of the Confederacy 
by citizens of the Confederate States and be 
protected as property. This clause was in- 
tended to forbid " squatter sovereignty," and 
to prevent adverse action against property in 
slaves, until the Territory should emerge from 
a condition of pupilage and dependence into 
the dignity, equality, and sovereignty of a 
State, when its right to define " property " 
would be beyond the interference or control 
of Congress. 

These constitute the changes that were made, 
and it will be seen that they were not aggres- 
sive, simply defensive, and were the opinions, 
the claims of constitutional right, of Southern 
Statesmen, formulated and embodied into or- 
ganic law. 

The distinguishing features of the Confede- 
rate Constitution may be summarized under 
three heads : 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 20I 

First, and obviously, additional and less dis- 
putable guarantees against anti-slavery. 

Secondly, prevention of the enlargement of 
the powers and jurisdiction of the General 
Government. Mr. Garfield, when a candidate 
for the Presidency in 1880, said : '' That powers 
do and ought to gravitate more and more 
toward the General Government." The Con- 
federate States feared and tried to arrest this 
gravitation. The pretension of the British 
Parliament which the Colonies resisted was its 
claim to omnipotence in its legislation over the 
Colonies. 

Thirdly, the Confederate States dreaded the 
abuse of the taxing power, as menacing the 
purity of the Government and the liberties of 
the people. They acted on the maxim of 
Mackintosh, that '' the preference of partial to ^ 
general interest is the greatest of all public 
evils." Security against wrong is the best 
definition of liberty, and the people have need 
to be protected against the usurpations and 
oppressions of Government as well as against 
domestic violence and foreign invasion. Jus- 
tice Miller, in Loan Association vs. Topeka, 
20 Wallace, 655, uses these weighty words: 
" Of all the powers conferred upon Govern- 
ment, that of taxation is most liable to abuse. 
There is no such thing in the theory of our 
governments, State and national, as unlimited 
power in any of their branches. The Executive, 
Legislative, and Judicial departments are all of 



202 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

limited and defined powers. Among these is 
the Hmitation of the right of taxation — that it 
can only be used in aid of public objects, an 
object which is within the purpose for which 
governments are established. It cannot, there- 
fore, be exercised in aid of enterprises strictly 
private, for the benefit of individuals, though 
in a remote or collateral way the local public 
may be benefited thereby. To lay with one 
hand the power of the Government on the 
property of the citizen and with the other to 
bestow it upon favored individuals, to aid private 
enterprises and build up private fortunes, is 
none the less a robbery because it is done under 
the forms of law and is called taxation. This 
is not legislation. It is a decree under legisla- 
tive forms." 

In this authoritative interpretation of the 
Confederate national life is not a single revolu- 
tionary clause, not a single phrase asserting a 
new claim, nor a novel application of an old 
principle. There is not the slightest encroach- 
ment upon the right of a single Northern State 
or citizen. 

The Southern States quit the Union, as they 
supposed, to check centralization, to save the 
principles of the Constitution, to restore the 
government of the earHer and better days. 
Purposing no interference with the rights or 
the property of others, they asked nothing for 
themselves but rights adjudicated by the Su- 
preme Court or claimed uninterruptedly since 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 203 

the organization of the Union. In the lapse of 
years, the conflicts of parties, foreign wars, un- 
der all administrations, no one ever whispered 
that the Southern States had violated the com- 
pact or meditated mischief to their sisters. To 
the Government and its principles, in peace and 
war, they had been unswervingly loyal and true. 
At the great Union meeting held in New York, 
15th December, i860, approved or partici- 
pated in by Hunt, Dix, Astor, Fillmore, Gen- 
eral Scott, Van Buren, Pierrepont, Bennett, 
Tremaine, and others, the Hon. Charles O'Con- 
nor said, with applause : " There is no fault in 
the South, as a whole, and it has done nothing 
to atone for." Hon. Fernando Wood, in his 
message as Mayor of the city of New York, on 
7th January, 1861, suggested the propriety of 
New York becoming a free city^ so as to pro- 
tect herself and not be a party against " the 
aggrieved brethren of the slave States." Mr. 
Stephens, the patriot and the statesman, whose 
pure life and sustained moderation make him a 
model for young politicians, in War Between 
the States, vol. ii., p. 94, says : " No Southern 
State ever did, intentionally or otherwise, fail 
to perform her obligation to her confederates 
under the Constitution according to the letter 
and spirit of its stipulated covenants, and they 
never asked of Congress any action or invoked 
their powers upon any subject which did not lie 
clearly within the provisions of the articles of 
Union." In State and Confederate Govern- 



204 ^^^ SOUTHERN STATES 

ments there was the strong determination to 
resist consolidation and centralism. That was 
the raisoit d'etre. 

Political speculators have frequently made 
deliverances in reference to centralism that are 
alarming to those who regard local govern- 
ments as essential to liberty and republican 
institutions. Party platforms and campaign 
speeches denounce State rights and hold up 
to suspicion and execration the '' Solid South " 
as still cherishing disloyal and disruptive de- 
signs. If Southern testimony, given in words 
and more expressive acts, is ever to be accepted, 
the North ought to be convinced that there is 
not at the South either wish or purpose, present 
or prospective, for a separation of the States. 
By universal concession, secession, as a remedy 
for any evil or abuse, has been buried in the 
tomb of the Capulets. Party necessity or viru- 
lence may keep open the stale accusation to 
inflame hatred or arouse the belligerent feeling 
of the past, but Don Quixote never charged a 
more real and harmless windmill than do the 
speakers and writers who conjure up secession 
as an enemy to be conquered again. State in- 
terposition is as dead as African slavery, and 
neither has any more life than a mummy of the 
time of the Ptolemies. 

The American people should distinguish be- 
twixt secession, a mortumn caput, and the much 
maligned and misunderstood doctrine of State 
rights. Among the many evils growing out of 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 20$ 

the war not the least is the popular prejudice 
which attaches to a theory of government that 
in other days was considered essential to the 
development and preservation of our institu- 
tions. The war for the Union is construed as 
determining, not simply slavery and secession, 
but State rights and all their appurtenances. 
Men so misconstrue legal and logical results as 
to think that the overthrow of the Confederate 
States involved the overthrow of the principle 
under which the seceding States sought to shel- 
ter themselves. As State rights were for long 
interposed by the South as a shield of slavery 
and as a bulwark against Federal usurpation, 
the subjugation of the South is supposed to 
involve the defeat of all the political principles 
that were ever held at the South. A sugges- 
tion looking to a strict construction of the 
Constitution, an argument for the preserva- 
tion of the well-defined boundaries between 
Federal and State power, an appeal to State 
pride or local patriotism, are treated with ridi- 
cule and contempt. The public mind has been 
schooled to look with indifference or aversion 
upon every attempt to return to the old paths 
or to set up the old landmarks. The vast 
stretch of Federal power during the war, the 
supposed necessary supremacy of the Central 
Government, the abeyance of State authority 
in those perilous times, have become fatal pre- 
cedents, contributing to this habit of thought 
and the acceptance of unwarrantable interfer- 



2o6 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

ences. The States are as important as the 
Union. The powers exercised by the States 
and the protection they afford are not less 
valuable than similar functions of the Central 
Government. Centrifugal tendencies may be 
dangerous and need ceaseless vigilance, but the 
same is true of the centripetal. Undue enlarge- 
ment of State authority may lead to collisions 
and irritations, but enlargement of Federal 
authority leads to consolidation, to the sacri- 
fice of individual and sectional interests at the 
shrine of national glory. Our fathers were 
jealous of Federal encroachment and sought 
to place State and personal rights beyond the 
possibility of injury. The history of New York, 
Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut 
shows as earnest a purpose to preserve the 
autonomy of the States as does the history 
of any other of the original thirteen. It is 
an evil omen that, in those same States, State 
rights should have fallen into disrepute, and 
battle cries, once stirring patriotic ardor to 
fever heat, should have become odious. To 
associate jealousy of Federal usurpation or re- 
sistance of illegal Federal authority with the 
South exclusively, or identify these patriotic 
sentiments with secession, is most unjust to the 
North and a travesty upon its history. Prior 
to i860. Northern States were not slow to in- 
voke their sovereignty. Massachusetts' records 
bristle with declarations of State authority. 
Republics in Europe have lacked the conserva- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 20/ 

tive and educatory influence of local govern- 
ments. The complex system of Federal and 
State governments, each moving in its ascer- 
tained and well-defined sphere, has been the 
puzzle and admiration of philosophical students 
of American politics. The abolition of slavery, 
as great a blessing as I concede it to be, unless 
universal suffrage shall neutralize its advantages, 
will have been purchased at a great price, and 
the desuetude of secession will have been 
established at perilous cost, if from these two 
results shall come the overthrow of States 
rights and the establishment of an unlimited 
centralism.^ 

The New York Herald, i6th March, 1861, 
published the Confederate Constitution in full, 
and on the 19th, recommended its acceptance 
as the basis of peaceful reunion. 

" The ultimatum of the seceded States is 
now before the Government at Washington, in 
this new Constitution adopted by the Congress 
at Montgomery, Alabama. Heretofore even 
our best-disposed Northern conservatives have 
been perplexed how to move, and what to pro- 
pose to reconcile ' the cotton States ' to the 
Union. Now, however, with their ultimatum 
before us, there can be no longer any doubt 
upon the subject. In their unrestricted dis- 
cretion to shape a Federal constitution for 
themselves, the seceded States have unques- 

' See Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 13 Wall. 646, and Keith y 
V. Clark, 97 U. S., 451. 



208 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

tionably provided these securities, checks, and 
balances, which they regard as essential for 
the maintenance of their peculiar institutions. 
Thus our Northern politicians and the adminis- 
tration at Washington are furnished the condi- 
tions upon which the Union may be re-estab- 
lished, without war and without trouble. The 
new Southern Constitution is the Constitution 
of the United States with various modifications, 
and some very important and most desirable 
improvements. . . . 

" Such are the provisions of this Southern 
Constitution which we may accept as the ulti- 
matum of the seceded States on the subject of 
slavery. Upon some other questions, however, 
there are certain stringent provisions in said 
Constitution, which it would be extremely diffi- 
cult to persuade our Northern fishermen, manu- 
facturers, and lobby corruptionists to swallow, 
even to re-establish the Union. The provisions 
include : 

** (i). The absolute prohibition of all bounties 
from the Federal treasury, and all duties or 
taxes on imported goods intended to promote 
or foster any branch of home industry. 

'' (2). A positive prohibition of Federal ap- 
propriations for internal improvements, and the 
substitution of local tonnage duties for such 
improvements. 

'' (3). The restriction of Congress by a major- 
ity vote to such appropriations as may be re- 
commended by the President, or some Execu- 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 209 

tive department. All other appropriations re- 
quiring a two thirds vote. 

*^ (4). The holding of contractors to the strict 
letter of their contracts. 

'' (5). That the Post Office department shall 
pay its own expenses. 

" These are excellent constitutional amend- 
ments. If they had been in force in Washington 
during the last ten years, they would have pre- 
vented the wasteful squandering in swindling 
lobby jobs, contracts, etc., of three, four, or five 
hundred million dollars of public money and pub- 
lic property that have been squandered to the 
enriching of the lobby jobbers, and the general 
demoralization of our Northern political parties 
and politicians to the lowest level of moral de- 
basement and corruption. The two classes of 
amendments upon slavery and upon the other 
important subjects comprehend the peace offer- 
ing of the seceded States to the border States. 
They are radical propositions of change and 
reform. . . . We are free to say, also, that 
the invaluable reforms enumerated should be 
adopted by the United States, with or without 
a reunion of the seceded States, and as soon as 
possible. But why not accept them with the 
propositions of the Confederate States on 
slavery as a basis of reunion ? Practically, to 
the North these slavery abstractions amount to 
nothing, while the reforms indicated are indis- 
pensable to the existence of our Government 

for any length of time, with or without the 
14 



2IO THE SOUTHERN STATES 

seceded States. Let President Lincoln then 
call Congress together, and let him lay before 
it this new Constitution of the seceded States 
and the peace propositions of their treaty Com- 
missioners, and perhaps there may be wisdom 
enough in the two houses to provide the ways 
and means for peace, and the purification of the 
Government at Washington, even if there be no 
way to absorb the government at Montgomery, 
Alabama." 

Slavery is thought by many, but inaccur- 
ately, to have been the sole cause of the con- 
flict between the North and the South, which 
conflict, as has been shown, originated in the 
convention which framed the Constitution, 
and continued until the surrender of Appoma- 
tox. Slavery was rather the occasion, the in- 
citement, which developed widely divergent, 
fundamental differences as to the character and 
functions of the Federal Government. The 
pecuniary value of the " peculiar institution," 
the sensitiveness inseparable from the holding 
of such property, the terrible consequences that 
might have come from fanatical agitation, in- 
creased the importance of the " occasion," or 
incident, and magnified it in pubHc estimation 
into the prime cause of the " irrepressible con- 
flict." The selfishness of property, the fierce- 
ness of party warfare and of sectional animosity, 
resistance to ofHcious and unconstitutional 
interference, the certainty of the solemn and 
clear guarantees of a sacred compact, had the 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 211 

natural effect of diverting Southern attention 
from the indefensibleness of slavery in civil- 
ized and Christian society, and of blinding the 
South to the incurable social, political, eco- 
nomic, moral evils connected with it. 

" When self the wavering balance shakes, 
It 's rarely right adjusted." 

There was a reaction from opposition to toler- 
ance, to defence, to approval. It is difificult at 
this day to realize what a change has been 
wrought in international law, in judicial decis- 
ions, in treaty obligations, in statute law, in 
opinions of churchmen and statesmen, in public 
sentiment and conscience, on the question of 
African slavery. Just eighty-two years before 
the immortal proclamation of President Lin- 
coln, Edmund Burke, one of the greatest politi- 
cal philosophers of modern times, thought 
slavery was an incurable evil, but the trade in 
slaves could not be stopped, and that all that 
could be done was to mitigate its horrors by 
judicious legislation. Bossu^t, the great French 
preacher, prior to that time, declared that " to 
condemn slavery was to condemn the Holy 
Ghost." Whitfield believed slavery an ordi- 
nance of God, designed for the eventual good 
of the African. Wesley had no doubt of the 
lawfulness of keeping slaves, and would have 
thought himself highly favored if he had been 
able to '' purchase a good number of them." 



212 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

Jonathan Edwards left, among other property, 
a negro boy. Bishop Berkeley also owned 
slaves. European nations engaged in and regu- 
lated the slave trade. In the first quarter of 
the eighteenth century, South Carolina imposed 
taxes on the importation of negroes, as much 
as ;^40 on each. In 1734 it was as much as 
;^50. The London slave-traders, grown rich in 
the nefarious traffic, made a strong appeal to 
the King for relief against these taxes. The 
efforts of the colonists to protect themselves 
against such a population, were '' shattered by 
an order from the King, instructing them to 
modify the laws so as to relieve the slave- 
traders of the import duties." The Carolinians 
abolished the customs-duties, but imposed a 
heavy tax on the Carolina purchaser of the im- 
ported negroes. This act expired by limitation 
in 175 1, but was promptly re-enacted and its 
conditions were continued under one form or 
another, until the Revolution. ^ In 1769, the 
Virginia Legislature prohibited the importation 
of negroes to be sold into slavery, but George 
the Third, who obstinately resisted all move- 
ments for the aboHtion of the slave trade, com- 
manded the Governor to veto the bill, and 
Governor Botetourt obeyed. In 1776 slavery 
existed in all the thirteen States. In 1778, 
Jefferson succeeded in carrying through the 
Assembly of Virginia a bill prohibiting the fur- 
ther introduction of slaves, and the same meas- 

^ See New York Evening Post, April 12, 1894. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 213 

ure was passed in Maryland in 1783, while both 
States removed all restraints upon emancipation. 
In 1786, to discourage the trade, North Caro- 
lina imposed a duty of five pounds per head on 
all negroes thereafter imported. In 1787, by a 
combination of New England with the far 
South it was consented, in the Constitution, to 
prolong the slave trade until 1808, notwith- 
standing George Mason of Virginia denounced 
it as an " infernal traffic." In 1799, LordThur- 
low denounced the *' altogether miserable and 
contemptible " proposal to abolish the slave 
trade. A traveller in 1795, writes: "Nearly 
twenty vessels from the harbors of the Northern 
States are employed in the transportation of 
negroes to Georgia and the West Indian Isles. 
The merchants of Rhode Island are the con- 
ductors of the accursed traffic." Munro, in his 
history of the town of Bristol, says : " Descen- 
dants of those engaged in the slave trade sup- 
press the evidence implicating their ancestors," 
and that '' the De Wolfs were by no means the 
only persons interested in the traffic." ^ 

' The Christian Union, ist September, i8gi, says the ex- 
portation of rum to Africa from Boston for the fiscal year 
ending June 30, 1891, was 808,737 gallons, and that the value 
of this " nefarious traffic " was $964,694. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Of the protracted and terrible conflict which 
supervened, it is not my plan or purpose to 
write. To most persons it came unexpectedly. 
It was generally believed that the North would 
welcome a release from further responsibility 
for the " barbarism and crime of slavery," and 
that the " wayward sisters," as Horace Greeley 
in the Tribune advised, would be allowed " to 
depart in peace." 

South Carolina sent a commission to Wash- 
ington to adjust all questions of dispute be- 
tween her and the United States. One of the 
first acts of the Confederate government was to 
accredit agents to visit Washington and use all 
honorable means to obtain a satisfactory settle- 
ment of all differences. Both efforts failed. 
Peace Congresses were alike impotent for good. 
It would avail nothing now to seek to explain 
the criminations and recriminations on both 
sides. The passions and prejudices of men 
were too inflarned for calm negotiation. Each 
side has published irreconcilable statements as 
to what occurred. Suffice it to say that war 
began. For the arbitrament of arms, the South 
had made, could have made, no preparation. 
Without the organized machinery of an estab- 

214 



THE SOUTHERN STATES. 21 5 

lished national government, without a navy, or 
the nucleus of an army, without even a seaman 
or soldier, with limited mechanical and manu- 
facturing facilities, with no accumulation of 
arms or ordnance and with no existing means 
for making them, without revenue, without ex- 
ternal commerce, without foreign credit, with- 
out a recognized place in the family of nations, 
with the hostile prejudices of the world, it is 
not easy to conceive of a nation with fewer 
belligerent capabilities. 

When war was accepted by the Confederacy, 
in its prosecution every resource of men, money, 
and means was used and exhausted. The 
blockade excluded from Southern ports arms, 
munitions, medicine. Bibles even had to be 
introduced surreptitiously, by evading the vigi- 
lance of formidable fleets. The whole coast- 
line being guarded, the salt, which was necessary 
for cooking and for curing meats, had to be 
found in few and remote salt mines, or by boil- 
ing saline water, or the saturated earth of 
" smoke-houses." The loyalty and fortitude 
and heroism of the women surpassed the cour- 
age and patient endurance of the men. Women 
singly furnished clothing, or united in bands 
and forwarded boxes of shoes and clothing, 
over failing and slow railroads, to the distant 
soldiers. By fatigue, hunger, disease and bat- 
tle the Southern army, largely armed with 
guns captured from the foe, was reduced to 
a thin skirmish line, confronting lines upon 



2l6 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

lines of well-clad, well-fed, well-drilled, well- 
equipped hosts, reinforced from the populous 
North, from freedmen, from hordes of foreign- 
ers. At length came the surrender. Attrition 
had worn away the granite hill to disparate 
pebbles. Whatever may be the differences 
of opinion as to the causes of the war, no 
brave or generous person can deny that it 
was illumined by deeds of desperate v.alor, of 
consummate skill, matchless fortitude, and pa- 
tient endurance of retreat, sickness, nakedness, 
and hunger. The heroism of the defence of as- 
serted rights, the dramatic catastrophe, submis- 
sion to the inevitable, resumption of paralyzed 
industries, the brave battle for rehabilitation of 
homes and establishment of a new civilization, 
should challenge respect, if not approval ; sym- 
pathy, if not admiration. The two chiefs, may 
I not say the four, — Lee and Johnston, Grant 
and Sherman, — at the head of the conquered 
and of the conquerors, present a spectacle of 
the moral sublime, at Appomatox and Durham's 
Station, which history may parallel but cannot 
surpass.^ 

' On the much-belabored question of exchange of prisoners 
see vol. i. of Southern Historical Papers, for testimony of 
Gen. Grant before the " Committee on the Conduct of the 
War," concurrent statements of Gen. Butler and others, atid 
the following letter from Gen. Grant : 

" City Point, Aug. i8, 1864. 
" To General Butler : 

" On the subject of exchange, however, I differ from Gen. 
Hitchcock. It is hard on our men held in Southern prisons 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 21/ 

The North displayed illimitable resources and 
'' indefatigable durability of fight." The con- 
flict developed marvellous military and naval 
skill and capacity. Since 1865 millions have 
been and are now being paid in grateful re- 
ward for services rendered. The Grand Army 
of the Republic keeps up its semi-political 
organization, and membership is a quasi title of 
nobility. Statues and monuments, from public 
revenues and by private subscription, are erected 
to dead heroes. A war record is the most 
available qualification for a candidate seeking 
popular suffrage. The ^' Bloody Shirt " is waved 
vigorously and successfully more than a quar- 
ter of a century after Appomatox. The most 
courageous politician yields conscience and con- 
viction before every demand of a soldier, and 
no party nor man dares to antagonize an issue 
which involves one of the Union patriots. The 
glory of men is that they volunteered or were 
drafted into the war ; the glory of a party is 
that it managed the war and brought it to a 
victorious termination ; the glory of the North 
is that it subjugated the weaker South. Every- 

not to exchange them, but it is humanity to those left in the 
ranks to fight our battles. Every man released on parole, or 
other\vise, becomes an active soldier against us at once, either 
directly or indirectly. If we commence a system of exchange 
which liberates all prisoners taken, we will have to fight on 
until the whole South is exterminated. If we hold those 
caught, they amount to no more than dead men. At this par- 
ticular time, to release all Rebel prisoners North would insure 
Sherman's defeat and would compromise our safety here, " 



2l8 THE SOUTHERN STATES. 

thing in the past hides its diminished head in 
comparison, or contrast, with the unexcellable 
honor of winning victories over the Confeder- 
ates. The credit, the enthusiasm, the furor, 
are not permitted to die out, but are sedulously 
fostered and enkindled. It would seem that all 
this should teach justice, and magnanimity, and 
chivalrous courtesy, and a ready recognition of 
the noble and valorous and knightly deeds 
which secured for the conquerors so much fame. 
Here and there, in towns and cemeteries of the 
South, are monuments to officers and privates, 
erected by the hands and hearts of poverty and 
patriotism, but every pension granted to Union 
soldiers, every resolution of thanks and congra- 
tulation after a battle, every statue of marble 
or bronze, crowning hillside or public square, 
every guarded and decorated national cemetery, 
is, indirectly, however otherwise intended, an 
enduring and eloquent tribute to the courage, 
the skill, the patriotism, the nobility of the 
South. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Since 1804 the Constitution had not been 
amended, but immediately after the war the 
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amend- 
ments were, by a kind of Caesarean operation, 
adopted, changing the constituency and revolu- 
tionizing the whole theory of the Government.' 
The Thirteenth Amendment provided for the 
abolition of slavery. The '' pecuHar institu- 
tion" was thus rendered impossible by ad- 
ding to Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation of Eman- 
cipation, — resorted to as a means of war per- 
missible against a belligerent, — a constitutional 
inhibition and a similar inhibition in the 

' Ex-Senator Ingalls, of Kansas, expresses a somewhat differ- 
ent opinion : " In the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth 
amendments to the Constitution are incorporated the final 
results of the War of the Rebellion. They are its summary. 
These few paragraphs are the treaty between the belligerents. 
In them are the trophies of the victors. Waged ostensibly to 
maintain the integrity of the Union and in denial of the dogma 
of State sovereignty, the future historian will not fail to note 
that the three amendments are silent upon this subject, and 
that two of them relate exclusively, and the other principally, 
to the freedom, citizenship, and suffrage of the negro race. 
The right of secession, if it ever existed, exists now, so far as 
any declaration in our organic law is concerned. It has not 
been renounced, nor is the supremacy of the Nation affirmed 
in its charter." 

219 



220 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

organic laws of the seceding States. It was 
proposed in Congress and ratified, while none 
of the seceding States were represented there, 
and yet the validity of the ratification depended 
on the approval of the States thus unrepre- 
sented.' This article abolishing slavery (the 
first time the word " slavery " appears eo nomine 
in the Constitution is in the article abolishing 
it), was proclaimed as ratified by twenty-seven 
States, December i8, 1865. In this number of 
States, Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, South 
Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia, 
and Tennessee, were computed in the rati- 
fying three fourths although all, except Ten- 
nessee, were under governments declared illegal 
by the Reconstruction Act of 2d March, 1867, 
and its supplements. The same objections 
existed to the other two amendments, and 
their ratification, besides, was coerced, being 
made a condition of the readmission of the 
States to their ordinary rights in the Union. 
The Fourteenth was declared as properly rati- 
fied July 21, 1868, and among the States in- 
cluded in the requisite ratifying number were 
Georgia, North CaroHna, South Carolina, 
Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida, whose a- 
doption of this article had been made a pre- 
requisite to their readmission into the Union 
or to their emergence from Provinces to 
States. Arkansas, whose admission was de- 
clared to be due to her antecedent ratification, 
^ Mich, Led., 226. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 221 

was also counted, as were Virginia, Mississippi, 
and Texas. These States, by act of March 2, 
1867, passed because of their refusal to ratify 
the proposed amendment, had been placed 
under military rule. ^ This article, as well as 
the others, had as its main purpose the making 
sure the emancipation of the negroes, and pro- 
viding for their protection, and against State 
discrimination on account of color. These 
amendments did not confer on the negroes the 
right of suffrage, but the Fifteenth did provide 
that no State shall deny to any one this right 
because of '^ race, color, or previous condition 
of servitude." ^ President Grant, in a special 
congratulatory message, 30th March, 1870, 
speaks of the ratification of the Fifteenth 
Amendment as a " measure which makes at once 
4.000.000 of people voters, who were heretofore 
declared by the highest tribunal of the land not 
citizens, nor eligible to become so," yet they 
had already voted, under the reconstruction 
acts, while citizens had been disfranchised. 
The process of enfranchising Indians is the 
reverse. The whole race or tribe is not trans- 
ferred into the body of citizenship, with all the 
powers of government, but each, man by man, 
is made a citizen on the condition of proving 
his competency to use the privilege for the 
general good, by dissolving his tribal relations 
and taking lands in severalty. The doctrine of 
primary and paramount allegiance to a State 

1 Mich. Lects., 227. 



222 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

was negatived by making what had never pre- 
viously existed, a citizen at large. " All persons 
born or naturalized in the United States, and 
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens 
of the United States, and of the State wherein 
they reside." This clause made citizenship the 
prerogative of birth in this country, introduced 
the new element of negro citizenship, and 
recognized and defined the distinction between 
citizenship of a State and citizenship of the 
United States. It is very doubtful whether, 
prior to this amendment, a citizen of the United 
States existed, except by virtue of the previous 
citizenship in a particular State.^ 

When the war was over, so far as related to 
any participation in it by the seceding States, 
not a single armed belligerent being in the 
field, there was demonstrated, by the Execu- 
tive, Legislative, and Judicial departments of 
the National Government and by the public 
press, the strangest and most contradictory dif- 
ference of opinion as to what were the legiti- 
mate results of the war, and what was the 
character of the Government which had suc- 
cessfully prosecuted it. The State governments 
of the South were in an anomalous or doubtful 
position. The officers had been active partici- 
pants in the struggle, and therefore liable to all 
the prescribed disabilities and penalties. In 
the absence of authority, recognized as legiti- 

' See, however, the Dred-Scott case, 19 Howard, 404, and 
The Slaughter- House cases, 16 Wallace, 36. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 223 

mate, some method had to be devised to pre- 
vent anarchy and to restore former relations to 
the Union. The opinions of the dominant 
party in Congress and of all the North as to 
the power of Congress, and the relation of the 
seceding States after the war to the Union, 
were in disorder and chaos. The powers and 
duties of the Central Government seemed in as 
much confusion, and as little coherent, as the 
disjecta membra of a fleet after a disastrous 
shipwreck. The restoration of the ante-bellum 
relations of the States occupied much of Mr. 
Lincoln's attention during the last years of the 
war. It is known that he oscillated between a 
rebellion, as the act of individual inhabitants 
in geographical districts, and the act of States 
as political bodies. As early as 1863, he pro- 
posed to Congress the readmission of States 
whenever it should appear that one tenth the 
number of those who voted in i860 had estab- 
lished a State Government asking admission 
into the Union. He left the question of suf- 
frage entirely in the hands of those who were 
qualified voters under the laws existing at the 
date of secession. A difference of opinion was 
developed between him and Congress as to 
whether the Executive or the Legislature 
should provide for reconstruction. Henry Win- 
ter Davis and Senator Wade denounced Mr. 
Lincoln's action as " a studied outrage on the 
legislative rights of the people." His tragic 
and unfortunate death made Johnson Presi- 



224 ^^^ SOUTHERN STATES 

dent, and his views were widely out of harmony 
with those of the party leaders in Congress. 
He claimed that Statehood was only in abey- 
ance, that its loss by the seceded States was 
only temporary, and that, in laying down their 
arms and ceasing their resistance to the Na- 
tional authority, they resumed their former 
attitude, and should at once be so recognized. 
The existence of the several States had not 
been terminated, nor were they out of the 
Union. They had powers and rights as before 
the war, and how to bring those powers into 
action again was the question. He held that 
the Executive alone was authorized to take the 
necessary steps toward restoration. Accord- 
ingly, he appointed provisional governors, and 
directed them to call constitutional conventions,^ 
whose duty it should be to make constitutions 
under which State Governments could be es- 
tablished, and representatives be elected to 
Congress. He required that the constitutions 
of the several States should be so amended as 
to abolish slavery, and that the amendment of 
the Constitution of the United States for that 
purpose should be adopted. No one could 
vote at the elections for members of these con- 
ventions, except such as were quahfied by the 
laws of the State just prior to secession, and no 
other qualification was required save an oath of 
loyalty. This scheme was carried out. The 
States with readiness obeyed the proclamation, 

^ Mich. Led., 219, 220. 



OF THE AMERICAN- UNION. 22 5 

held sessions of their legislatures, elected Sena- 
tors, amended their constitutions, declared null 
and void the ordinances of secession, and abol- 
ished slavery. The Supreme Court sustained 
the right of the President to establish provi- 
sional governments in the seceded States prior 
to any action of Congress, but impliedly denied 
his power to determine the conditions of resto- 
ration in opposition to the will of the National 
Legislature/ The President's action excited 
great indignation at the North and in Congress. 
The admission of the Southern Members of 
Congress was refused. 

An angry controversy arose between the 
President and Congress, and the latter, insisting 
upon its exclusive right to impose conditions, 
limited by legislation the power of the Presi- 
dent as to amnesty, command of the army, and 
right of removal from office. The party in 
power were able to maintain their policy over the 
veto of the President, and the bitter antagonism 
culminated in the partisan spectacle of Articles 
of Impeachment by the House of Representa- 
tives. The disgrace was not consummated, as 
there was a failure to secure a two-thirds vote 
of the Senate. Congress considered the seces- 
sion of the States as an abandonment by them 
of all rights under the Constitution, and that 
by the arbitrament of war they were relegated 
to the position of territories, to be governed by 
Congress, until they should appear as suppli- 

* 7 Wall., 700 ; 13 Wall., 646. 
IS 



226 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

cants for admission to the Union with constitu- 
tions properly framed and adopted by vote of 
the entire people, including the negroes. By a 
perverse inconsistency it was held that a war to 
prevent secession put the States out of the 
Union, and that secession, defeated on the bat- 
tle-field, was practically accomplished under the 
policy of peace — at least, so far as to deprive 
the *' wayward sisters " of their autonomy, and 
to consign them to the status of military dis- 
tricts or subjugated provinces. It was held that 
the lately belligerent and conquered States 
could legally adopt and give validity to a con- 
stitutional amendment, but could, also, be kept 
out of the Union in provincial vassalage as long 
as Congress pleased, and then be admitted on 
any terms the conquerors might dictate. The 
Constitution, quoad the " rebellious " States, 
was abrogated or suspended. The constitution- 
ality of the reconstruction acts has never been 
fully or formally decided by the Supreme 
Court, but the language of the Court, in the 
cases last cited — Texas vs. White, and White 
vs. Hart, shows that, in the opinion of the 
Court, it was the duty of Congress, on the suc- 
cess of the Government, to provide for the 
establishment of loyal governments in the se- 
ceding States, and their restoration to their old 
place on such conditions as seemed to that body 
wise, and that the methods and conditions of 
such restoration were " political " questions, in 
which the Court was bound to follow the action 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 22/ 

of Congress ! There was not a consensus of 
opinion, even in the dominant party. Its leader 
in the House of Representatives said he would 
not so far stultify himself as to say that the re- 
construction measures were constitutional. In 
reports and speeches there Vv^ere exhibited as 
many irreconcilable views as to the political 
status of the lately seceded States and as to the 
competency of Congress, as there were individ- 
ual members in the party. It was the game of 
the thimble-rigger transferred to the Congres- 
sional arena. The ingredients of the witches' 
cauldron were not more odd and heterogeneous 
than the opinions of judges, their obiter dicta, 
the utterances of Representatives, and the acts 
of Congress. On 22d of July, 1861, the House 
of Representatives denied '' any purpose of con- 
quest or subjugation," and affirmed that the 
war was waged " to preserve the Union with all 
the dignity, equality, and the rights of the 
States unimpaired, and that as soon as these 
objects are accomplished, the war ought to 
cease." The close of the war made urgent and 
absorbing the question of reconstruction, in- 
volving that of negro suffrage. The resolutions, 
opinions, and actions were in utter discord and 
irreconcilable with any plausible theory. In- 
surgent populations, military organizations, 
belligerent parties, States with political capacity 
to wage war, were used as equivalent terms. 
The guaranty of a republican form of govern- 
ment was the favorite Constitutional shelter for 



228 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

severe legislation, and this provision was exe- 
cuted by organizing, under coercion of the 
bayonet, " an electoral machinery," the motive 
power of which was stupid freedmen. One pur- 
pose, however, was manifest in all this contrari- 
ety and confusion. It ran through the whole 
legislation. The South had not been sufficiently 
punished by the war ; the rebellion had not been 
sufficiently stamped out. R. H. Dana, in 
Faneuil Hall, had proposed to hold the South- 
ern States '' in the grasp of war for thirty 
years." The *' rebels " must be humiliated 
and put under bonds, galling and stinging, to 
keep the peace. The decimation of popula- 
tion, the crushing of hopes, the dislocation of 
society, the bankruptcy of the country, the 
obliteration of millions of property, the sud- 
den overthrow of the traditional system of 
labor, submission to all the ingeniously devised 
tests of loyalty, must be supplemented by 
placing the State governments in the control 
of negroes and carpet-baggers. The effort was 
coolly, deliberately, avowedly made, to place 
the offending States in the hands of those who 
had been, and still were, loyal to the Govern- 
ment at Washington — the only admitted test or 
standard of loyalty being the color of the skin, 
or voting the Republican ticket in elections. As 
previously stated, on 2d of March, 1867, it was 
enacted that ten of the Southern States should 
be divided into military districts and placed 
under military rule. This law, as Mr. Garfield 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 229 

declared in debate, " laid its hands on the rebel 
governments, taking the very breath of Hfe out 
of them ; in the next place, it puts the bayonet 
at the breast of every rebel in the South, and 
leaves in the hands of Congress utterly and ab- 
solutely the work of reconstruction." This, 
and a supplemental act of 23d of March, an- 
nulled the State governments then in operation ; 
enfranchised the negro ; disfranchised all who 
had participated in the war, if they had previ- 
ously held any office under the State or Gen- 
eral Government, and pointed out all the 
machinery necessary to organize new Govern- 
ments upon the ruins of the old. Until the 
several States should be admitted under these 
governments into the Union, the military offi- 
cers in command were to have absolute power 
over life, liberty, and property — except that 
death sentences must have the approval of the 
President. Several ineffectual attempts were 
made to get the question of the validity of 
these laws before the Supreme Court. At last 
a case was presented and argued, and, while the 
Court had it under advisement, a bill was 
rushed through both Houses of Congress and 
passed over the President's veto, depriving the 
Court of jurisdiction over appeals in such 
cases.' This substitution of military despotism 
for government by the people, of courts martial 
for civil jurisprudence, gave, as was purposed, 

^ Why the Solid South ; or. Reconstruction and Its Results, 
pp. 25-27. 



230 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

uncontrolled supremacy to the authorities in 
Washington. The citizenship and suffrage, 
compulsorily thrust upon the negroes, were not 
due to any effort for freedom put forth by them. 
In the history of the human race, such price- 
less privileges had been hitherto won by persist- 
ent effort, by tedious centuries of discipline and 
sacrifice. The National Government consti- 
tuted itself the guardian of these wards, and, by 
military supervision, by special laws, by coerced 
constitutional amendments, by exotic judges, 
by provisional and provincial governments, by 
freedmen's bureaus with lavish largesses, by 
every variety of appliance, undertook to pre- 
serve the rights of the freedmen. The negro 
was provided with schools and churches, courts 
and governors, garrisons and legislatures. The 
plan of reconstruction was made to depend up- 
on his political support, and, at any cost, that 
support had to be given or to appear to be 
given. The wards followed implicitly, uninquir- 
ingly, as a religious duty, the direction of their 
new masters, and the corrupt leaders nursed 
the prejudices and the self-conceit of their ignor- 
ant followers, inflamed their passions, and de- 
luded them with expectations of social equality 
and a partition of the lands. While thus en- 
gaged, these leaders enjoyed the confidence and 
support of those who commissioned them, and 
they had themselves elected to multiplied 
offices, not as public trusts, but as furnishing 
opportunities for plundering and for revenge. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 



231 



" Horrors of Reconstruction " is no exaggerated 
phrase. Duplicity, ignorance, superstition, 
pauperism, fraud, robbery, venality, were in the 
ascendant, made and kept so by Act of Con- 
gress.' Mr. Pike, a former Republican member 
of Congress from Maine, in The Prostrate State, 
speaks of the military government of South 
Carolina, in 1867, as "a carnival of crime and 
corruption," " the most ignorant democracy 
that mankind ever saw invested with the func- 
tions of government," and characterizes " the vil- 
lainies of the State Government " by such terms 
as " morass of rottenness," " huge system of 
brigandage," " wholesale bribery of members." 
" The last administration stole right and left with 
a recklessness and audacity without parallel." 

It is a presumption of law that one intends 
the necessary or legitimate consequences of his 
own acts. No excuse can be pleaded against 

' Debts and Liabilities of the Southern States. 



States, 


At close of the 
war. 


After recon- 
struction. 


Increase. 


Alabama 


$5,939,654-87 
4,036,952.87 
221,000.00 
Nominal. 

10,099,074.34 
9,699,500.00 
5,000,000.00 
Nominal. 

20,105,606.66 
Nominal. 

31,938,144.59 


$38,381,967.37 
19,761,265.62 

15,763,447-54 
50,137,500.00 
50,540,206.61 
34,887,467.85 
39,158,914.47 
20,000,000.00 
4.^,688.267.46 


$32,442,312.50 
15,724,312.75 
15,542,447.54 
50,137,500.00 
40,341,132.27 
25,187,967.85 
34,158,914.47 
20,000,000.00 


Arkansas 


Florida 






North Carolina 

South Carolina 

Mississippi 




^^.cS^.-ficfi.Sn 




20,361,000.00 20,361,000.00 
45,480,542.21 13,542,397.62 


Virginia ,...■.•>.....• 






$87,139,933-33 


$380,160,575.13 


$293,020,641.80 



From Hon. H. Herbert's " Solid South," and the speech of Hon. St. 
George Tucker, p. 6566, Congressional Record^ first session. Fifty-first 
Congress. 



^ 



2^2 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

the accusation that Congress intended to place 
Louisiana, Mississippi, and South CaroHna 
under the control of the negroes, the census 
showing in those States that the negroes had a 
majority over the white people, and the as- 
sumption being that every adult male negro 
was a legal voter, a Republican, in actual exer- 
cise of suffrage. Let it suffice to give the sum- 
ming up of the reconstruction policy by Justice 
Lamar. '' It was the offspring of misconception 
and distrust of the Southern people. Its theory 
was that the Federal success in arms over the 
South was only a partial one ; that the senti- 
ments, passions, and aims of the Southern 
people were still, and would continue to be, 
rebellious to the authority and hostile to the 
policy of the Nation ; that the termination of 
the war having put an end to the absolute mili- 
tary control, it became necessary to substitute 
another organization which, though not purely 
military, would be no less effectual in its func- 
tion of repression and force. Its unmistakable 
purpose was the reversal of every natural, social, 
and political relation, on which, I will not say 
the civilization of the South, but of the world 
and the whole Union, rested." ^ 

Negroes and their allies were in control for a 
few years. The lesson should not be forgotten 
that the races, so distinguishable, may meet, 
side by side, but are far more immiscible than 
Jew and Gentile, Greek and Moslem. It re- 

^ Lamar's Calhoun, 71. 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 233 

quired the combination of all the strength, 
prestige, patriotism, patience, intelligence, spirit 
of the South, sustained by constitutional con- 
servatism at the North, to save the country from 
becoming a second San Domingo. Better work 
was never done for the negroes than in defeat- 
ing the policy and purpose of " Reconstruc- 
tion." But for the successful resistance to 
ignorance, superstition, fanaticism, knavery, the 
grossest executive, judicial, and legislative out- 
rages, there would, to-day, be no schools for 
negroes at the South, no protection to property, 
no loyalty to the Union. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

As the Southern States have given infalHble 
proofs of their recognition of the Thirteenth, 
Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, how- 
ever doubtfully adopted, and of the consequent 
indissolubility of the Union by any separate 
act of State interposition, and of the equality 
of the rights and privileges of every citizen, the 
magnanimity which they have exhibited needs 
to be imitated. Reconstruction, as a personal 
and State obligation, should not be confined to 
territory south of Mason and Dixon's line. 
Loyalty and patriotism are inward, and come 
not from coercion, distrust, or multiplication of 
tests and oaths. What the South has said and 
done should be accepted generously and con- 
fidingly. In 1868, either Seymour or Grant 
received all their electoral votes. In 1872, 
Greeley had their partial support, and his en- 
dorsement by Southern men was the strongest 
possible proof that universal freedom was an 
unalterable fact, and that slavery of the African 
was no longer an issue in political contests. 
In this contest, General Grant received six of 
the nine seceding States whose votes were 
counted. Such Northern men as Tilden, Han- 

234 



THE SOUTHERN STATES. 235 

cock, and Cleveland have been sustained with 
enthusiasm, and no persons could be, in mind 
and heart, more thoroughly Union and anti- 
slavery than they. Our foreign relations have, 
in some instances, been committed to Southern 
hands, and no one has suspected that our inter- 
ests and honor and flag were not in them per- 
fectly secure. In internal legislation, while 
consistently adhering to their old principles of 
strict construction. States rights, economy of 
expenditure, low taxes, there has been no whis- 
per of a covert purpose on the part of the 
South to weaken the Government, discredit its 
character, or impair its prosperity. If, unfortu- 
nately, a foreign war should occur, no one 
doubts the enthusiasm or courage or patriotism 
of the South in sacrifices or conflicts. 

The action and utterances of the press and of 
public men at the South, in sustaining the wise 
and successful effort of President Cleveland to 
maintain the authority of the Federal Govern- 
ment and execute Federal laws in Chicago, are 
in strict accordance with the reconstructed senti- 
ment, and ought to silence the gibes about dis- 
loyalty and the " rebel brigadiers." The spirit 
of nationality and of devotion to the Union is as 
strong in Georgia as in Massachusetts ; stronger 
than in many States where a hyphened citizen- 
ship is the dominant factor in elections. It is, 
however, singular that Southern support of the 
Constitution and of regular Government should 
be adduced as inconsistent with the contention 



236 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

of the seceding States. It is stupidity to assimi- 
late the action of those States to the lawlessness 
of rioters and anarchists. It shows a perverse 
unwillingness or incapacity to understand the 
character of our complex federative system 
when it is argued that sustaining the President 
in the protection of property and lives against 
the crimes and madness of the lawless is an 
abandonment of the true States-Rights theory. 
Secession was the enthronement of law, the in- 
terposition of political sovereignty between the 
people and illegal usurpation. It was not mob- 
ocracy nor anarchy, but the appeal to LAW, in 
its highest and most authoritative expression. 
There is not the remotest analogy, but irrecon- 
cilable opposition, between the claims of a mob 
and the deliberate action of a State, invoking 
its sovereignty. 

It is often coolly, somewhat pharisaically, 
assumed that emancipation of slaves in the 
North was the result of respect for the laws of 
God and the rights of man, and that the war 
was a protest of sensitive and enlightened con- 
sciences against the barbarism of slavery. The 
altruistic teachings of Christianity are often ex- 
aggerated as to their influence in the abolition 
of class-distinctions. History shows that prog- 
ress has not been due to intellectual and religious 
forces only, but that economic forces which have 
been at work in society have been the most 
controlling of all. Unquestionably, religion in 
human evolution has been potential in inducing 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION, 237 

the sacrifice of individual interests to the general 
good, but it is a common post hoc propter hoc 
delusion to attribute to conscience and morals 
what grew out of economics, or political or 
military causes. The abolition of slavery at the 
end of the fourteenth century was brought about 
" almost wholly by economic causes, and appar- 
ently the teachings of Christianity had no share 
in it." ^ So the logic of events, the unprofitable- 
ness of slave labor, the exigencies of war, had 
much to do with freeing the slaves in the North- 
ern States and with President Lincoln's procla- 
mation. It is almost certain that the border 
States would have gradually and peaceably man- 
umitted their slaves, if they had been left to the 
natural course of human events, and to the ex- 
ercise of their own independent autonomy. In 
1830 the Virginian Convention came within a 
few votes of adopting prospective emancipa- 
tion. Kentucky, at a later day, had a strong 
political and religious movement, looking to 
the same end. Many statesmen, and leaders of 
thought, and quiet men and women deplored 
the existence of slavery, and perplexed their 
intellects and consciences to devise feasible 
methods of release from w^hat seemed to them 
an increasing evil and danger. These wise and 
conservative men and women were silenced by 
the growing and perverted proslavery senti- 
ment which had been created by selfish inter- 
ests on the one hand, and the fierce assaults of 

^ Yale Review, May, 1894, pp. 101-103. 



238 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

the abolitionists on the other. The war abol- 
ished slavery summarily. The South, being no 
longer interested pecuniarily or politically in its 
extension or continuance, was in a condition to 
consider the whole question without the bias of 
prejudice or of interest. As the result of this 
calm survey, every thoughtful, rational person 
in the South not only acquiesces but rejoices 
in the cessation of the system. As to the suf- 
frage imposed upon the negro, his general eligi- 
bility to office, his fitness for such responsibili- 
ties of citizenship, and the persi^ent attempts 
to subordinate States, cities, and communities 
to his domination, the opinion and sentiment 
of the white people of the South are solid and 
unchangeable. As to the freedom of the negro, 
his right to choice of, and compensation for, 
his work, his capacity for improvement, there is 
little difference of opinion. In her sacrifices 
and continuous efforts to lift up the race, the 
South has acted with conspicuous magnanimity 
and generosity. The law makes no distinction 
between races as to personal and property 
rights. Public schools have been established 
and sustained in every State ; every child, 
white and black, has access, for a portion of the 
year, to free education. 

It should be borne in mind that the burden 
of this gratuitous instruction has fallen, and for 
a long time must continue to fall, dispropor- 
tionately on the white citizens, who pay ninety- 
five per cent, of the taxes. The negro improves 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 239 

in intelligence, is slowly accumulating property, 
finds the level his merits entitle him to, but as 
the Government, which so unconditionally lib- 
erated him, and thrust upon him the exalted 
prerogatives of citizenship, refuses to aid in his 
education, he must rely for that boon upon the 
people who were formerly his masters, and 
against whom, in all political contests, he is 
urged and commanded to act as if he had no 
option, and as if they were his implacable 
enemies. 

Serious as are the political and social appre- 
hensions arising from two races, radically dis- 
similar, occupying the same territory, and 
sharing jointly and equally in all civil rights 
and privileges ; and revolutionary and precipi- 
tate as was the change in the traditional system 
of labor, the South is slowly vindicating the 
possibilities of her people under the stimulus of 
free institutions and a Christian civilization. 
From 1865 to 18S0 the recovery from the 
paralysis and bankruptcy and exhausted ener- 
gies of a prolonged and desolating war on her 
own soil was slow and painful, and there was 
no increase in the aggregate value of her prop- 
erty, but now there is a sure growth because of 
development of mineral resources, increasing 
manufacture of wood and cotton and iron, mul- 
tiplied and cheapening facilities of transporta- 
tion, and the beneficial effects of free schools 
and manual training upon productive industry 
and self-reliant manhood. 



240 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

The two great Republics, the French and 
ours, have exhibited extraordinary powers of 
self-restoration, demonstrating the solidity of 
a prosperity and of governments which rest on 
the secure basis of popular support. Both 
France and the United States, after terrible 
reverses, bravely " picked themselves up again," 
to repair losses and restore strength. France 
was a unit, and had the spirit of nationality. 
The South, which alone of the two combatants 
in the war between the States sustained pecu- 
niary damage, had far more serious reverses 
than France, was more thoroughly impoverished, 
had disasters multiplied fourfold, and was sub- 
jected to a social, political, and economic up- 
heaval that history cannot parallel, yet she has 
displayed splendid powers of rehabilitation and 
unusual capacity for government. In the past, 
her record in politics, in jurisprudence, in war, 
in social life, has been remarkable, but since her 
new life has begun she has illustrated a slow, 
practical purpose of reorganization, a magnifi- 
cent patience and fortitude in bearing up under 
calamities, an adaptation to strange and hard 
vicissitudes, a loyalty to Truth and the Consti- 
tution that should elicit everywhere the admira- 
tion of the thoughtful and the patriotic. This 
harmonizes with her ancient glory. No large- 
minded student of comparative civilizations can 
utter a hasty censure on a state of society which 
gave to the world and to free government our 
Washington and Jefferson, to judicature our 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 24 1 

Marshall and Taney, to statesmanship our 
Madison and Clay and Calhoun, to the science 
of war our Jackson and Scott and Taylor and 
Johnston and Lee, to chivalry and energy of 
recuperation such splendid examples of man- 
hood and womanhood. It would be no com- 
pliment to the North, with exhaustless wealth, 
with all the machinery of a powerful, organized 
government, with unquestioned courage and 
patriotism, with extraordinary military and 
naval prowess, if four years were needed to 
defeat a handful of badly-clad, badly-equipped, 
widely scattered men, the product of an inferior 
civilization. 

Mr. Gladstone expressed the true philosophy 
of politics when he said : '^ I ask that we should 
apply to Ireland that happy experience which 
we have gained in England and in Scotland, 
where the course of generations has now taught 
us, not as a dream or a theory but as prac- 
tice and as life, that the best and surest found- 
ation we can find to build upon is the founda- 
tion afforded by the affections and the 
convictions and the will of the nation, and it is 
thus by the decree of the Almighty that we may 
be enabled to secure at once the social peace, 
the fame, the power, and the permanence of the 
Empire." If anything has been well established 
in modern times, as the result of an enlightened 
civilization, sublimed by the spirit of Christ, it 
is that *' as practice and life, the best and surest 

foundation " a nation can find to build upon, 
16 



242 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

for its social peace and fame and power and 
permanence, *' is the foundation afforded by the 
affections, the convictions, and the will " of the 
people. Love is not won by distrust, suspicion, 
injustice, or abuse. This disturbing sectional 
issue between the North and the South having 
been removed by the irrevocable emancipation 
of the slaves, philanthropy, patriotism, sound 
policy demand the exercise of mutual forgive- 
ness and confidence and fraternity. The object 
of this book is to shield the South from unjust 
aspersions, to vindicate her motives, to show 
that her action did not spring from any sudden 
ebullition of discontent or hate, was not the off- 
spring of sudden caprice, or of a predisposition 
to separation, and to place her action in con- 
nection with the Union upon the impregnable 
basis of authentic history and the Constitution. 
While seeking to vindicate or extenuate her 
course at the bar of impartial, disinterested 
posterity, this effort is not at all inconsistent, in 
reason or in conscience, with the calm and sin- 
cere confession that the Union is highly advan- 
tageous, that success would have brought many 
complications and responsibilities, and that the 
greatest curse that ever afflicted the South was 
the introduction and the continuance of African 
slavery. We must distinguish between consti- 
tutional guarantees, deliberately and unani- 
mously covenanted, as the price for a union of 
States, and the subsequent opinions and con- 
ditions in opposition to slavery and its security, 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 243 

the antipodes of what prevailed when the Union 
was created. Now, disembarrassed of all ques- 
tions of interest, of organic restraints and com- 
promises, of poHtical power, the calm judgment 
of all must be that slavery, socially, politi- 
cally, and economically, was a misfortune, an 
evil, a calamity. Rid of some of its wrongs 
and mischiefs, the South, in the elements of a 
future prosperity, presents an aspect novel and 
hopeful. In population, in the last decade, it 
has made an immense advance, showincr an in- 
crease of from 9 to over 40 per cent. Cities 
have sprung up like magic, and grown from 100 
to 1000 per cent. The industrial progress has 
been more remarkable. Coal and iron and 
marble, \i^hich were known to exist in princely 
abundance but had remained dormant, have 
been developed to an extent which seems 
likely to transfer to the South the control of 
the mineral industries of the country. The 
nine iron-producing States of the South in 1890 
turned out 2,917,529 tons of iron ore, only 
246,310 tons less than the entire product of the 
United States in 1870. The output in the coal- 
producing States of the South in 1890 was more 
than twice the output of bituminous coal of 
all the States in i860, and nearly 2,000,000 
more tons than the total production in 1870. 
The South produces about three fourths of the 
world's annual cotton crop, and in ten years the 
number of her too few cotton mills has more 
than doubled. 



244 ^-^^ SOUTHERN STATES 

One of the most obvious economic evils of 
slavery was the concentration of labor upon a 
few products. Lately, there has, under the 
new conditions, been a most marked and grati- 
fying diversification of crops. Vegetables and 
small fruits, in their transportation to Northern 
markets, require the full capacity of steamers 
and railroad trains for several months of the 
year. Other crops and the rearing of live 
stock show the remunerating change from a 
limited number of products. Improved tillage, 
improved country roads, manual labor in pub- 
lic schools, will add other varieties and enhance 
wealth. " The timber resources of the South 
are far greater than any other portion of the 
United States, or indeed, of any civilized and 
well-settled country in the World. The South- 
ern section contains the largest area of wooded 
land, and nearly one half of the merchantable 
timber in the United States. It has a greater 
variety of woods than any other section, and 
these enter into more industries." In the rail- 
road mileage of the South in the last decade, 
there was an increase of 96 per cent., and, in the 
twelve Southern States, the total assessed 
valuation of property shows $3,706,906,168 
against $2,164,702,585 in 1870. 

The educational statistics present the most 
significant development. The per centage of 
gain in school enrolment has outstripped the 
percentage of gain in population. "In the 
thirteen years for which separate statistics for 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 245 

the white and black races in the South are ac- 
cessible, the white children enrolled in the pub- 
lic schools have increased from 1,827,139 to 
3^197)^30 or about 75 per cent, while the in- 
crease of white population has been only 34 
per cent. The negroes have a still better re- 
cord. In the same years, the enrolment has 
increased from 571,506 to 1,213,092, an in- 
crease of 112 per cent, while the population 
has increased only 27 per cent. The increase 
in school appropriation has been from $11,- 
231,073 in 1877 to $23,226,982 in 1889. The 
negroes paying one thirtieth of the taxes get 
nearly one-half of the fund spent in education." 
The North and the South are mutually de- 
pendent for helpful ofifices, and for the most 
effective working out of their grand destiny. 
The right arm cannot say to the left, " I have 
no need of thee." Excluding all questions of 
controversy and variance, they have had a com- 
mon history, full of noble achievements, of 
successful endeavors in the cause of enlightened 
popular government, and have been incalculably 
beneficial to humanity. Neither section has 
been free from human frailties, from the errors 
and vices generated by selfishness and ambition 
and passion. Time enough has elapsed since 
the great contest for prejudices to yield to 
justice, for animosity to be merged in fellow- 
ship, for sectionalism to yield to abroad, catho- 
lic patriotism. Both North and South need 
reconstruction, not in legislation and govern- 



246 THE SOUTHERN STATES 

merit, but in sentiment, in fraternity, in the 
conviction of the need of undivided Caucasian 
energies for working to a wise solution the 
great problems which Providence has devolved 
upon them. The South has been sinned 
against as well as sinning. What brought upon 
her the severest condemnation — Slavery and 
Secession — were not originated by her, but 
borrowed or inherited from others. It would 
be well for those of us, survivors of the terrible 
struggle of 1 861-1865, to make amends for 
our errors, and give the remainder of our days 
to making good the not unreasonable boast 
that this is the best government the world 
ever saw. 

What has been accomplished by the North 
and the South in all departments of govern- 
ment, in all the utilities of practical life, in all 
the duties of citizenship and religion, shows that 
they are of one blood and possessed of com- 
mon characteristics. No people in any land 
have given better and nobler illustrations of 
the higher human virtues. There is before 
them, if thoroughly united and co-operating, 
a future of vast and inspiring possibilities. 
Civilization, free government, a pure religion are 
committed in large measure to them. After 
care and defence of their own race and people — 
guarding against the delusion of altruism, that 
this is to be indefinitely and without restriction 
the asylum of the discontented of the Old World 
— they still owe to other nations and peoples 



OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 247 

duties which can best be discharged by making 
our experiment in the highest degree success- 
ful. The other countries need America, if she 
keep herself free, prosperous, law-abiding. Our 
Revolution, said Europe's greatest statesman, 
was " a vindication of liberties inherited and 
possessed." An eminent English writer said : 
'* The ruin of the American cause would have 
been the ruin of the constitutional cause of 
England, and a patriotic Englishman, not less 
justly than the patriotic American, may revere 
the memory of Patrick Henry and of George 
Washington." Through a colossal trade Great 
Britain and the United States make contribu- 
tions of wealth to each other. The old medi- 
aeval or barbarous notion that what one nation 
gains in trade the other loses, should have no 
adoption in our land. We have illustrated 
the principles of popular government, and de- 
monstrated that a people, under proper restric- 
tions, with the security of concurrent majori- 
ties and a written constitution, can be safely 
trusted with political powers, and that a stand- 
ing army and constructive treason and the aris- 
tocracy of caste or class, of birth or office, are not 
necessary to hold the governed in loyal subjec- 
tion. With fidelity to the Constitution, the 
Union, the States, with a scrupulous regard for 
national engagements, with honest money, with 
justice to all, with a rejection of the harmful 
and perilous dogma that To the Victors belong 
the Spoils, and its sequence of Legislative cor- 



248 THE SOUTHERN STATES. 

ruption, sinecure offices, and administrative 
nepotism, with a union of hearts and hands of 
all sections, ours may still be an example of 
Liberty enlightening the World. Be it our 
high privilege to confer other and greater bles- 
sings and to show how intelligence, enterprise, 
civil and religious freedom, and respect for 
the Majesty of Law may constantly increase 
comfort, intelligence, prosperity, and happiness. 



THE END. 



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